Goa voted a record 76.82 % at these Lok Sabha elections while sealing in the EVM’s the fate of those 19 candidates who were in the fray for the two seats. For now it is all guessing and speculation, as only on 16th May would we know who the two winners are. The high voter turnout is a good sign for democracy as this Right to Vote enshrined in our Constitution must unfailingly be exercised. In South Goa there were 12 in the fray. While the battle is clearly between Reginaldo Lourenco of the Congress and Narendra Sawaikar of the BJP, it would be interesting to see what the planted spoilers achieve. In a tactical move to split the anti-BJP votes, Churchill Alemao and Shalom Sardinha were fielded. The BJP would also be hoping that AAP’s Swati Kerkar would have mauled into Congress votes. The Goa Su-Raj Party also tried its level best to target Reginaldo Lourenco. The great defector Mauvin Godinho is now almost certain of officially joining the BJP in the hope he will get relief in the Power scam case and also earn rich dividends from the party in power. It is no surprise that Manohar Parrikar has embraced a person whom he all these years called very corrupt. We will have to wait and see how many votes the vibrant tribal leader Govind Gaude polls while the tally of the CPI leader Raju Mangeshkar in the mining belt in particular would also be crucial in deciding as to who the victor in the South is. In North Goa although there were seven in the fray, the battle lines are drawn and it will either be Shripad Naik or Ravi Naik who will land in the next Lok Sabha. The BJP will have to watch and see whether its strategy of fielding Dayanand Narvekar to split Congress votes has borne fruit while it must be also hopeful that their very own AAP’s Dr Dattaram Desai will come to the rescue of the saffron brigade. It would be important to watch out for the chunk of votes that will be polled by CPI leader Adv. Suhas Naik who is an outstanding personality amongst the candidates in the North. With his impeccable integrity and political sincerity, he would be an asset to Goa if he finds a place in the next Goa Legislative Assembly as MLA from Panaji. In this election campaign which has been far from free and fair, the BJP had everything to its advantage having started its high powered multi crore campaign over a year ago. Being in power it also had the entire State machinery to manipulate at its back and call. Even the Chairperson of Quepem Municipal Council Dayesh Naik was arrested on the night before polling. There was no dearth of Vitamin M which flowed all over, especially in the last few days before polling. Huge party and surrogate advertisements were published in all the newspapers on polling day and two days prior. That most of the print and electronic media was tilted heavily towards the BJP was there for all to see. Despite all this, if the BJP does not get a landslide win in both the seats it would need a deep political post-mortem. On May 16th we shall know it all, the Winners, the Villains and the Vanquished.
Posted on: Sun, 13 Apr 2014 06:37:12 +0000
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