Special Correspondent
Panaji
The state BJP core committee has forwarded names of six probable candidates to the central leadership in Delhi for the post of party’s presidentship in Goa.
The leaders, who have made it to the list include Narendra Sawaikar, Damodar ‘Damu’ Naik, Chandrakant ‘Babu’ Kavlekar, Dilip Parulekar Dayanand Mandrekar and Dayanand Sopte. The committee is expected to meet again on January 6.
Incidentally, the state BJP unit is facing some hitches in its organisational elections. For one, the party workers have objected to the short-listing of Kavlekar for the top party post in the state as he has been imported from the Congress to the BJP and originally not from the party cadre.
The new state president, who will be replacing Sadanand Shet Tanavade later this month, will have to immediately lead the preparations for the 2027 Assembly polls in the state, for which the party has begun preparations, even though its government has two more years to rule the state.
His first task will be to strengthen the newly-formed organisational structure of the party as
well as commence election-specific programmes around Goa.
Party sources informed that the BJP wants to take no chances of any kind while contesting the assembly polls, especially as the party could be facing massive anti-incumbency, following three terms of its rule in the state.
Secondly, the BJP has no Mandal committee in the Madkai constituency and the BJP workers complain that their works are not being done by Ramakrishna ‘Sudin’ Dhavalikar, who belongs to the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party – an alliance partner of the BJP – and represents the constituency. In the absence of the BJP Mandal committee in Madkai, these BJP workers have nowhere to go.
Furthermore, the state unit of the party has failed to garner satisfactory support to its 2024 membership drive in four constituencies – Velim, Nuvem, Benaulim and Madkai. These constituencies have witnessed registration of very few members for the BJP. In addition, there are no booths of the party in these constituencies. Therefore, the state BJP unit will be announcing the names of its booth presidents in only 36 constituencies by January 7.
To add to these problems, Dhavalikar has visited the national capital and expectedly met some senior national BJP leaders to counter the complaints against him that he is ignoring BJP supporters in his constituency.
