PANAJI
: With
Subhash Shirodkar
switching over to the BJP, the beleaguered Congress seems to have begun in right earnest to fight the saffron party in Shiroda constituency.
In the backdrop of speculations that BJP is still on a poaching exercise, the Congress began scouting for probable candidates for the bypoll which will be held within six months.
Party leaders have their eye on Shiroda zilla panchayat member Jaideep Shirodkar. At a meeting held on Thursday between Congress incharge for Goa desk A Chella Kumar and
Goa Pradesh Congress Committee
president Girish Chodankar at the opposition leader’s official residence at Altinho, Panaji, it was decided to induct Jaideep, Chodankar told TOI.
Former Congress MLA Subhash Shirodkar who had regained the constituency from
Bharatiya Janata Party’s Mahadev Naik in 2017 general elections, resigned from the seat on Monday to join to the BJP.
Shirodkar was a six-time Congress MLA of Shiroda. He made his political debute in the 1984 election and retained the seat in 1989, 1994, 1999. In 2007 and 2012, Mahadev Naik of BJP had defeated him, but he emerged victorious in 2017 by defeating the Naik.
Jaideep, son of former Maharshtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) Shiroda MLA Jaikrishna Shirodkar, has claimed that the MGP failed to recognize his family’s contribution to the party and has never considered his name for candidature to the assembly. Jaideep’s father Jaikrishna was an MGP MLA of Shiroda constituency for two terms in 1972 and 1977.
Being a son of a former MLA, Jaideep says he has been involved in social work since childhood and “can defeat Subhash Shirodkar”.
During the 2015 zilla panchayat polls, Jaideep won 4,165 votes as an independent against the 3,893 votes of his rival Nagu Kavlekar backed by BJP’s Mahadev Naik and 2,483 votes of Avdhut Naik backed by Congress’ Subhash Shirodkar. The total votes polled was 10,500 for the Shiroda ZP constituency.
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