Goa: Many Nuvem Congress workers, voters secretly supporting Wilfred Babashan D’sa

NUVEM: In what could be a sign or a good omen for the Wilfred D’sa camp in Nuvem, a huge number of Congress voters and workers are secretly supporting “Babashan” as he did not cut off ties with any of the pro-Congress voters and families in his constituency, even after switching from Congress to the BJP and helped many of them (Congress voters) during the Covid pandemic.

Unlike some politicians like Dy CM Chandrakant “Babu” Kavlekar from Quepem constituency, who closed their doors and cut off ties with their former Congress “friends”, after joining the BJP in July 2019, D’sa always kept his doors open. “Everyone is welcome at my office and residence, even if they don’t vote for me, D’sa has declared time and again, and this open-door policy is now reaping dividends for him.

After ten Goa MLAs from the Congress led by their Leader of the Opposition (LoP) switched sides overnight and went over to the BJP in July 2019, many of them closed their doors to Goans whom they perceived to be anti-BJP, who would not accompany them unconditionally to their new party.

Even journalists were not spared. Some pro-Congress freelance journalists, who could earlier just walk into Kavlekar’s office or residence, suddenly found huge “No Entry” signboards glaring at them, after he became the Dy CM. Kavlekar stopped attending to phone calls and replying to messages from journalists, considered “soft” to the Congress in the coastal state.

And after the “porn clip incident”, Babu Kavlekar ‘blocked’ many former friends from the Congress, including media persons and other professionals like lawyers and doctors from Goa.

Technically speaking this was a huge PR blunder, as politicians like Babu Kavlekar, Dayanand Sopte, Babu Azgaonkar and a few more, who overnight changed their political affiliations, should have proactively engaged with such media persons and voters alike, at least during Covid pandemic time, to keep them in their good books, even though they themselves were now praying to a new god. On the other hand, MLAs like Wilfred D’sa, Babush Monserrate (Panaji), Subhash Shirodkar (Shiroda) and a couple of others, welcomed “their old friends, irrespective of political affiliation” with open arms, without differentiating between old and new supporters or party workers.

Even after the dramatic “cake protest” organized by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), outside Wilfred D’sa’s residence, something which was heretofore unknown in the political history of Goa, as before this incident Goan politicians or party workers never went to protest at the private residence of any rival politician, no matter what the situation or issue was, D’sa in true Christian spirit, did not personally attack or seek vengeance on his political rivals in his constituency, a gesture which will definitely be remembered by voters in Nuvem, when they step out of their homes to cast their vote.

Meanwhile, speaking to media persons last week, Wilfred D’sa asserted that development work worth Rs 60 crore was sanctioned for Nuvem on his initiative, in the last 1.5 years, out of which Rs 40 crore worth assignments were already completed.

“The rest of the work will be completed by December this year. I am continuously following up with the concerned departments to get the work done,” D’sa who is popularly known as Babashan said.