Ravi denies slowing poll campaign due to threats

PANAJI: While reports floated that Congress North Goa candidate Ravi Naik deliberately slowed down his election campaign in the final days of electioneering due to threats that cases would be filed against him, Naik dismissed the reports as rumours floated by vested interests.
Congress state unit president John Fernandes also dismissed the reports and said that the Congress executive committee will meet for a similar exercise after the Holy Week, Fernandes said.
Some functionaries in the Congress also told TOI that there is a perception that Naik had gone slow in the final days of campaigning. He kept quiet, he seemed scared and did not expose himself from motor vehicles to the electorate, they said, adding that there are reports that Naik was threatened that criminal cases would be filed against him.
A House committee headed by Nuvem MLA and Goa Vikas party supremo Francisco 'Mickky' Pacheco has already named Naik in a drugs-related case. There are also accusations that Naik was involved in a recruitment scam in the department of animal husbandry and veterinary services when he was a minister for that department during the previous Congress government.
The reports say that the BJP got wary that Ravi Naik might benefit from the supposed anti-incumbency against its sitting MP Shripad Naik.
But the Congress candidate has rubbished these claims. "No one can touch me. No one can threaten me. I don't care for anyone. There is no point talking about this now. We will just have to wait for the results to know that I worked hard," he said.
Naik asserted that he will cross two lakh votes in North Goa. Not only had he covered all assembly constituencies, but many Congressmen had united to work for him. For example, former Calangute MLA Agnelo Fernandes had united with former Calangute sarpanch Joseph Sequeira and all Congress sitting and former MLAs had worked in their respective constituencies for his sake, he said.
"When I was the chief minister of Goa in 1991, I got the Congress party leads in 39 of the 40 assembly segments during that parliamentary election. We fielded Eduardo Faleiro in the south and Harish Zantye in the north. I managedthat single-handedly and I know how it works," said Ravi Naik.