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BJP feeling Parrikar’s absence ahead of Panaji bypoll

Last Updated 16 May 2019, 17:55 IST

The absence of former chief minister late Manohar Parrikar is clearly beginning to tell on fortunes of the BJP, ahead of the Panaji Assembly bypoll on May 19, which has been necessitated after the demise of former defence minister on March 17.

Since 1994, Parrikar has retained the state capital constituency for the BJP right up to 2014, when he was elevated to the central cabinet and virtually ‘remote controlled’ the victory of his aide Sidharth Kuncalienkar in his absence on two occasions.

Faced with a tough challenge from Congress’ Atanasio Monserrate and fearing a possible cut in the Hindu conservative vote-bank, with the presence of ex RSS chief Subhash Velingkar in the electoral ring, the BJP is appearing to be clearly missing Parrikar’s larger-than-life personality and sharp political acumen to guide it to victory, which the party has been accustomed to.

To make up for Parrikar’s absence, Chief Minister Pramod Sawant and BJP ministers in the coalition government, have been virtually camping in the state capital, meeting voters and party workers in a bid to iron out any wrinkle of dissent against Kuncalienkar.

“A section of the core BJP voters were expecting the party to field Parrikar’s elder son Utpal for the bypoll. But the manner in which he was sidelined by some members of the party’s state executive in favour of Kuncalienkar, appears to have created some resentment,” a senior BJP official told Deccan Herald.

The BJP’s desperation came to the fore when Sawant addressed a meeting of BJP’s youth workers a couple of days ago and urged them to reach out to voters as much as possible.

“If you want me to meet even ten voters, I am willing to come wherever you say to meet these voters and try to convince them,” Sawant said.

Not that the Congress candidate Atanasio Monserrate’s campaign is shorn of obstacles. Monserrate has a string of criminal cases against him and the disappearance of a rape victim from a rehabilitation centre amid the campaigning phase, has punctured his momentum.

“This is the BJP’s dirty tricks department at work,” state Congress president Girish Chodankar told DH.

The potential of Velingkar, a veteran former Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh leader, to hive off the Hindu conservative vote away from the BJP, could be one of the most watched elements in the bypoll.

The other major candidate in the fray is Aam Aadmi Party’s Valmiki Naik.

Panaji is one of the state’s smallest constituencies with around 22,000 voters. That Parrikar himself managed to scrape through with a margin of less than 2000 on at least two occasions, is indicative of how narrow the winning margins can be in the constituency, which for a quarter of a century has been BJP’s pocket borough.

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(Published 16 May 2019, 15:41 IST)

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