Mangalore: Colaco reveals secret behind J R Lobo's victory
Special Correspondent
Daijiworld Media Network - Mangalore
Mangalore, May 13: J R Lobo’s victory from Mangalore South constituency in the recent elections to the state assembly should not come as a surprise to all those who have been working behind the scenes for over two years. His thumping victory over four-time MLA Yogish Bhat is the result of the fruits of the hard labour of all those who worked with the single minded devotion of ensuring his victory.
Though Lobo’s victory was a foregone conclusion none including his opponents expected him to romp home to victory by such a huge margin of over 12,000 votes. Lobo has been magnanimous in acknowledging the role of Congress workers and community people in his victory.
There are however, a few individuals who have played a more essential role in ensuring Lobo’s entry into politics, his subsequent elevation as a politician, timely clearance of hurdles planted by the vested interest from within the party and now his electoral victory. Naturally his victory is celebrated with great fanfare by the Mangalorean society and the Christian community as well.
There have been media reports that NRI businessman and philanthropist Ronald Colaco was primarily responsible in bringing Lobo into politics ensuring him getting the Assembly ticket and for providing him all sorts of support in his first electoral battle. J R Lobo has acknowledged that Colaco, keeping in view the interest of the erstwhile Mangalorean peace loving society in general and Christian community in particular, has played a major role in supporting him and has been instrumental in his victory, with the wholehearted support of all communities of course.
Hard work yields good results
In fact an investigation by daijiworld.com has revealed that Colaco had begun his homework two years ago without much fanfare. The first step in this direction was to scout for a community leader with a clean reputation and J R Lobo’s name was zeroed in with due suggestions from a few concerned prominent leaders and professionals in Mangalore, such as M P Noronha, Austin Peres and others. So, Colaco convinced Lobo to take VRS from his KAS post two years before he was due for superannuation and eight months back was made to join the Congress, overcoming several impediments in the process.
All this was done with the invisible patronage of Ronald Colaco and his above mentioned supporters who worked silently. Finally when there was a big clamour for party ticket with many aspirants vying for the ticket especially by Lancelot Pinto, Suresh Ballal, Naveen D’souza, Arun Coelho, Rohan Monteiro and Dolphy D’souza, Ronald Colaco took it upon himself the responsibility of convincing the above aspirants to stay away from the race and to extend their support for J R Lobo.
However Colaco’s effort in convincing Ivan D’souza did not yield any positive result in spite of promising him a lobby with the party high command for an alternative respectable position. Therefore Colaco had no choice but to lobby for getting the ticket to Lobo by convincing state and central leaders, Bishop of Mangalore, Archbishop and all other Bishops of Karnataka. Colaco also succeeded in making the party dissidents in the constituency realize the futility of their actions and the need to work unitedly.
When Daijiworld spoke to Ronald Colaco to elicit his views as to what made him choose J R Lobo as the Congress candidate from Mangalore, Colaco pointed out that Ivan D'Souza was earlier supported by him, as well as the community, during 2008 elections. But Ivan could not win despite the best efforts of the community as well as Colaco’s wholehearted all round support. There were also reports from the first line and second line leaders of district Congress that Ivan did not allow their political growth or their leadership within the Congress during the past 5 years.
“There were a lot of undercurrents within the local Congress leaders and it was evident that with Ivan’s style of functioning it would not be possible to unite the Congress rank and file in the constituency. We realized that people opposing Ivan would work for his defeat. So we were on the lookout for someone who is acceptable to all sections of the society and capable of uniting local Congress leaders to fight the elections as a collective force. J R Lobo had worked as a Commissioner of Mangalore City Corporation and there were Corporators who were groomed under him. He had earned a lot of goodwill in his myriad roles as a bureaucrat. I thought he was the best candidate to dovetail the Congress and it has worked,” says Ronald Colaco, who sounded quite elated about his two years of persistent efforts in preparing him for the constituency with the whole-hearted support of many dedicated youth and adults, yielding desired results.
File Photo
Colaco, however, says that he had to keep his efforts under total secrecy and he had the support of the community leaders as well as the leaders from other communities and religious leaders in these efforts which helped him to go ahead with this challenging task with gusto.
Overcoming hurdles
When Daijiworld asked Colaco how he was able to convince the supporters of Ivan D’souza who almost threatened to rebel, Colaco pointed out that after burning his effigy, they realized their own mistake a little later and approached him personally and appologised to him which made him happy and at the same time he felt proud of them. He was also able to convince them on the need to fight a united battle in the assembly elections, for their own better political prospects.
A few other Congress sources said Lobo was chosen as the candidate because as a bureaucrat he has an impeccable track record with a proven ability. It was felt that his bureaucratic experience and connection and guaranteed political position would come in handy in ensuring the development of the district.
Even Colaco acknowledges that Lobo’s bureaucratic experience and political power would be a good combination that would spell development of the district.
Despite such herculean efforts, sources within the Congress revealed to daijiworld that not everything was hunky-dory in the Congress. There were hurdles galore in carrying out a united battle. Colaco tried to placate Ivan D'Souza by convincing Congress State high command that he should be given an important responsibility which resulted in him being appointed as the convener of the election committee in charge of the district.
When asked about the impediments he faced in ensuring the goal he aspired for, Colaco pointed out that there were many hurdles including conspiracy by some Congress leaders by colluding with the opposite camp. However, Colaco did not divulge the name of such Congress leaders. He agreed that the biggest hurdle was in ensuring that Lobo gets the party ticket. “It was not as easy as it looks now,” says Colaco when asked. When Daijiworld enquired from Colaco about the various hurdles thrown at J R Lobo from within the party cadre, to ensure his defeat, Colaco simply brushed it aside saying, "We need not worry on these hurdles now, since Lobo has won with a margin of 12,300 votes after making good the deficit of 9000 votes during the previous assembly election, thereby making a swing of 21,300 votes in favour of Congress that never happened before in this assembly constituency."
Conspiracy by own partyman to defeat Lobo
Daijiworld’s investigation among the local Congress leaders revealed that a committee of important Congress leaders had complained to the high command, (a copy of which was forwarded to Daijiworld) that a Catholic leader was indulging in activities detrimental to Mangalore South Congress candidate’s victory. It is an open secret now that the so-called leader was responsible for two Catholic candidates and also one Muslim candidate contesting against Lobo as independent candidates only with the intention of spoiling the electoral prospects of Lobo.
According to the local Congress complaint report, the same leader was engaged in ferreting out details about KUDCEMP project, (handled by J R Lobo) with the intention of making false allegation of misappropriation of funds. First he tried to mislead the high command with cooked up reports so as to block the assembly ticket for Lobo. When this could not be achieved, he then tried to leak out the same details to the press but without much success.
The report says that he was the brain behind the pamphlets from Hanumanth Kamath meant for circulation with the intent of tarnishing Lobo’s image and he was hand in glove with the opponents in this task by giving them the same set of KUDCEMP project documents' copies that he forwarded to the Congress high command and the media earlier. However, these pamphlets were confiscated by the police on the evening before the polling date, thus averting a major hurdle.
Now that the battle has been won and the goal has been achieved with Lobo’s thumping victory, Colaco says he feels vindicated by his role, along with so many others, in the victory. He says the victory has given a strong message to the fundamental elements that they cannot take people for granted under the pretext of moral policing or conversions. “This victory sends a clear warning to all those who have tried to use false propaganda to divide people. There has been an orchestrated move to divide the society on caste, creed and religious lines, on such false propaganda, which is unfortunate.
"We wanted our district to regain its glorious past where there was peace and communal harmony. At the same time, to have our District’s overall economic development that it deserves, we wanted a highly competent person commanding respect from all sections of the society and J R Lobo suited that role."
Colaco acknowledged the contributions of many Congress and community leaders who worked with J R Lobo and his team. He said though he would like to acknowledge their contributions, taking a few names would hurt the sentiments of many others as he might not be able to mention each and everyone’s name.
Nonetheless Colaco expressed his happiness in having achieved a major victory with the support of the people who voted for the right candidate irrespective of caste, creed, language or religion. “With the election of J R Lobo I expect that there will be more development in the district and communal harmony will be restored. I hope the youth will continue to enjoy the freedom without the fear of moral policing”, Colaco stated.
Having basked in the glory of enjoying the fruits of victory, it is now time to concentrate on a new initiative to restore the peace and pride of Mangalore and ensure its progress.
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