Star-struck Naik surprised at his defeat

Ram Naik, Bharatiya Janata Party's former petroleum minister, maintains a stoical approach to his defeat in the parliamentary elections.

After nurturing his Mumbai North constituency continuously for five terms during which he was voted to parliament, it may be difficult for him to digest a drubbing at the hands of a total political novice, movie star Govinda.

But he is not expressing any shock or dismay at this loss. "I am just surprised. I must say I did not expect these results," he told Gulf News from Delhi.

He would have understood the defeat if he had not performed well in his ministry or did not do his homework in his constituency.

"Even my liaison with the people was good."

The conscientious worker that he is, Naik believes that he had covered his ground well when it came to "performing my duty as a MP." He has even maintained an anti-divestment and anti-privatisation stand that should have worked as a populist move, a similar position that the Congress has propounded to an extent.

And yet this drubbing has come from someone who is a hero only in films. "If the entry of Govinda was the cause of my defeat, then what is the reason for Manohar Joshi to lose to a weak candidate," he asks.

The answer is simple, he says. "The entire opposition which was earlier fragmented came together. In fact, I have got 4,000 more votes than last time." Naik got 511,492 votes which is 48,271 less than Govinda, his opponent.

He, however, does not complain of missing voters' names as the cause of losing but admits that "there is a need for improvement since there was chaos at the time of polling due to the exclusion of voters' names."

Many of these issues will have to be debated once the dust settles down, he says. Naik does not subscribe to the rationale that the saffron alliance lost in Mumbai because of their poor performance as MPs. "We have done well in Vidarbha where we took 10 out of 11 seats in the region."

As an oil minister, he has been praised for his pragmatic stand and for mooting projects and long-conceived ideas of building a Strategic Oil Reserve for India.

"This government will have to formulate their approach especially in the face of rising oil prices. There are a lot of problems that will have to be tackled. The speciality of the Vajpayee government was that it took quick decisions, even when it came to the oil sector."

Meanwhile, "I will be continuing my political work," he says.