Shripad Naik, North Goa MP who said this was his last election, set to continue as Union minister

Six-time North Goa MP and former Union minister Shripad Yesso Naik is all set to continue his ministerial innings in the third Narendra Modi government.

Naik defeated his “friend’ and former Union Law Minister Ramakant Khalap of the Congress in the recently-concluded Lok Sabha polls by a margin of over 1.16 lakh votes. Naik (71), in the run up to the polls had claimed that this would be his last election.

In 2019, he had defeated Congress’s Girish Chodankar by over 80,000 votes.

Hailing from the Bhandari community, Naik’s political journey began with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in his younger days. In 1984, he was elected as the sarpanch of Durbhat village panchayat and a decade later became MLA of the Marcaim Assembly segment as the BJP’s candidate. He soon rose through the ranks to become the BJP state chief in the early 1990s.

In 1999, Naik was first elected to the Lok Sabha from North Goa, a seat he has now retained six consecutive times.

Over his long political career, Naik has held several portfolios. In 2014, he was appointed the Minister of State (Independent Charge) for the Ministry of Tourism and Ministry of Culture and later he held the portfolio of the Minister of State (Independent charge) for the Ministry of Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homeopathy (AYUSH) and Health and Family Welfare.

In 2019, he was appointed the Minister of State for Defence and two years later, he became the Minister of State for Tourism and Ports, Shipping and Waterways.

A businessman by profession, Naik has represented the state in volleyball, kabbadi, swimming and shooting in his younger days.

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