Goemkarponn desk
PANAJI: Soon after the nominations for the 2022 Assembly elections, the talks in the entire State was about the family raj in Goan politics.
Out of the 40 seats in the Goa Assembly, ten seats — a staggering 25 per cent — contested by the husband and wife duo: Two in the BJP, one in Congress, one in the TMC and one independent. But it didn’t stop at that. The Alemao father-daughter duo contested TMC tickets, whereas their alliance partner MGP had two brothers contesting.
There were a total of five couples in the fray.
Michael Lobo and his wife Delilah Lobo, Vishwajit Rane and his wife, Deviya Rane, Babush Monseratte and his wife, Jennifer Monseratte, all the three couples won while two couples, former DY CM Babu Kavlekar and his wife Savitri Kavlekar and Kiran Kandolkar and his wife Kavita, lost.
The voters also rejected Churchill Alemao and his daughter Valanka, who fought on the Trinamool Congress ticket.Indeed it was a mixed response from Goans on the family Raj.
While one couple of Michael and Delilah was elected in Congress, two couples of Babush-Jennifer, Vishwajit-Deviya, won from the BJP camp.
Churchill-Valanka, Kiran-Kavita lost from Trinamool camp and Babu-Savitri from BJP.
In 2012, Manohar Parrikar was promising a change. He was riding on the massive anti-incumbency of the Digambar Kamat-led Congress government. His campaign focussed on the ‘Family Raj’ of the Congress government, helping him pillory the Monserrate, Rane, Naik, Alemao families of Goa. He had vowed to send the ‘six-member family’ home. Churchill Alemao, the South Goa strongman, got four tickets for his family members in the 2012 election.
The results favoured the BJP and the Alemao family, with Churchill, his brother Joaquim, daughter Valanka and Joaquim’s son Yuri losing the elections.
The ‘family raj’ campaign had struck a chord with the masses, and Parrikar emerged as a new leader.
But 10 years down the line, BJP has lost its Dy CM for the same reason family Raj. People of Quepem and Sanguem did not accept this.
“Also, being the Dy CM, Kavlekar should not have fielded his wife from Sanguem against his party candidate Subash Faldesai,” a BJP worker who did not want to be named said.