Nilesh Cabral “under serious consideration” for BJP South Goa Lok Sabha seat!

PANAJI: Former PWD Minister and Curchorem MLA Nilesh Cabral’s name has once again cropped up in the race for the South Goa BJP Lok Sabha seat, even as the party ‘struggles’ to shortlist women candidates with the winnability factor.

As we reported earlier, the BJP leadership was ‘considering’ the name of a Catholic candidate for South Goa and once again sources indicated that Cabral may be in the reckoning. The BJP leadership in Delhi is expected to announce the second list of candidates today (or tomorrow).

Cabral who is known all over Goa is reachable and personally responds to WhatsApp and SMS messages by Goans. He has been with the BJP as a loyal karyakarta and is also acceptable to the Catholic voters of South Goa to a large extent. He is also quite active and can be considered to be the man-about-town for the BJP in South Goa. In fact, Cabral has a unique combination to ensure ‘winnability’ –  the magic word while selecting candidates for any poll, political observers in South Goa pointed out.

ALSO READ: MLA Nilesh Cabral is acceptable to voters of all communities in South Goa

Initially, the names of former CM and Margao MLA Digambar Kamat, Speaker and Canacona MLA Ramesh Tawadkar, former deputy CM Chandrakant ‘Babu’ Kavlekar, former MP Sawaikar and party general secretary and former Fatorda MLA Damodar ‘Damu’ Naik were shortlisted.

Kamat and Tawadkar openly declared that they were not interested in contesting the Lok Sabha polls, while Kavlekar and Sawaikar are still in the fray. Naik is being considered for other roles in the party and may be made State President by the end of this year, BJP sources claimed.