Will the silent voter decide the fate of candidates?
GOANEWS DESK, PANAJI | 08 February 2017 11:41 IST
Fingers crossed; that’s the mental condition of most of the candidates in the recently held Assembly election. Simply because the voter had gone silent!
Almost all the parties have claimed victory, the big or the small, but none of them with authentic calculations. Because they don’t know whom the silent voter has actually voted for.
The contestants admit the voter was silent and claim that this silent vote would go to them.
They also claim that the large turnout of 82 per cent, similar to 2012, was once again for a change.
But BJP’s Goa general secretary Sadanand Shet Tanavde refuses to buy this argument.
“Goa sees large turnout because we have strengthened our booth management since last election. It’s wrong to interpret it as a vote for change. It’s a BJP vote”, he claims.
But he has no satisfactory explanation of why the voter has gone silent, unlike the vociferous voter of 2012.
“The voter goes silent when he decides to go anti-establishment”, says Prakash Kamat, a veteran journalist and senior assistant editor of The Hindu.
According to him, the womenfolk was more silent this time while the men were speaking out openly, especially against the wrong doings of defence minister of Manohar Parrikar, during his regime as the Goa CM.
Adv Cleofato Almeida Coutinho, a political analyst, puts forward a contrary argument to this.
“The voter never goes for a change with silence. The silence this time is because he doesn’t want to go for a change”, he argues.
In fact he even refuses to accept the fact that the voter is silent, though not vociferous as the case of Parivartan election of 2012.
Jyoti Dhond, special correspondent of Goa Doot, a Marathi daily supporting the BJP viewpoint, also does not agree that the voter was silent.
“I met common people like vegetable and fish vendors. Even they were speaking openly”, she observes.
Based on the information she has gathered, Dhond says the rural women had meetings to decide whom to vote.
Kishor Naik Gaonkar, chief reporter of Goan Varta, who is still a voter of Mandrem, however counters these arguments.
“The voter is silent out of fear. They have gone silent because they want to teach a lesson to those who are ruling, be it the government or the MLA”, he says.
The Aam Aadmi Party claimed that the voter has gone silent because he or she has gone against all the established parties while supporting AAP.
But Pankaj Gupta, the national secretary who has extensively toured the whole state for the last 10 months, wonders why the voter is silent even after voting on 4th February.
“I am experiencing this phenomenon for the first time”, he admits.
Supporting Kamat’s view that women are more silent than men, Naik Gaonkar has his own explanation for this.
He says it’s because they fear that the benefits of social security schemes like Griha Adhar and Laadli Laxmi may stop if they speak out openly what they did at the polling booth. That’s they are still silent.
Though the interpretations of why the voter is silent may differ, the politicians, analysts or journalists agree on one point – the result is highly unpredictable.
Thus everybody waits till 11th March!
Looking at the trends a hung assembly is much possible on March 11 when the election results are declared. BJP with Ind supported is likely to get major share with 17 seats, followed by Congress with Ind. supported 12 seats. MGP 4, Goa Forward 2, AAP 2-3 seats. Depending on public pulse, silent vote and since it is new party, there is still doubt on how much seats AAP will actually bag and this will accordingly affect Congress share
Those Candidates who are won in their respective party Symbol and they want to go in other party must first Resign and Re-contest in other party’s symbol and win and go to that party. Without resigning and without re-contesting should not be allow to jump to other party. This is direct Cheating with the voters!
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