Political Pulse Of Goa Series: Nationalist Congress Party
NCP: The year 1999 is a long time ago. It was when Sharad Pawar broke away from the Congress and set up the Nationalist Congress party along with a few other Congress leaders. Within a few months the party established a presence in Goa under the leadership of Wilfred de Souza who merged his Goa Rajiv Congress with the NCP. The party first won one seat (2002) and which later rose to two after the UGDP’s Mickky Pacheco resigned and joined the party in 2005 and reached three after the 2007 assembly elections which was the highest ever tally the party reached. Unfortunately in 2007 party president Dr Wilfred himself lost the elections.
The party never regained the height it attained in 2007 and in fact was totally routed in the 2012 assembly elections with all its candidates losing in the polls.
In 2017 the party did only marginally better with party candidate Churchill Alemão winning the polls largely on his own strength rather than party popularity. With Alemão since quitting the party and joining the TMC the party’s chances look bleak. With the entry of the TMC, the party is staring at a further erosion in its vote share which stood at 2.3% back in 2017. Party president José Philip D’Souza too is likely to lose his seat having lost both in 2012 and 2017.
This election could well mean the end of NCP in Goa.
By Andrea Fernandes
