Cong sweeps municipal polls
GOANEWS DESK, PANAJI | 01 November 2010 15:01 IST
Congress has swept the municipal polls. The BJP is struggling to form a council only in Mapusa, among the 11 that went for polls yesterday.
In Pernem, Vasudev Deshprabhu’s panel needs to form a council with independents, due to fractured mandate.
The ruling Congress has established clear mandate in Valpoi, Bicholim, Margao, Cuncolim, Quepem, Sanguem and Canacona.
Though there were no party-based elections, the elected councilors have said they belong to the Congress party.
In Mormugao, neither Vasco MLA and revenue minister Jose Philip D’Souza nor Mormugao’s BJP MLA Milind Naik could get clear majority.
Similarly, Curchorem MLA Shyam Satardekar needs to beg for councilors to form Congress-backed council in Curchorem-Cacora.
“This is a vote for the development done by the Congress”, clamed chief minister Digambar Kamat, addressing a press conference in the evening.
In his Margao constituency, Digambar is however facing threat, not from the BJP but his own party general secretary Vijay Sardesai.
The councilors are divided between these two camps while BJP-sponsored councilors are literally being wiped out in the district town of South Goa.
In spite of having BJP legislators, the councils lost are Rajesh Patnekar’s Bicholim and Vijay Pai Khot’s Canacona.
Health minister Vishwajeet Rane has claimed that he has defeated the BJP council in Bicholim, including its two-time chairperson Satish Gaonkar.
Ramesh Gawas, a social activist, however has countered the claim, stating that people of Bicholim have taught a lesson to the non-performing BJP-backed council.
“Vishwajeet was just an additional factor”, he claimed.
Though the ruling party has claimed that it’s verdict for development, it is also crystal clear that the Congress had systematically reserved prime opposition’s wards for ST and OBC.
An impartial introspection is necessary to know as to what went wrong in losing the elections! I is the money power, the adherence to ideological leaning, the habitual voters casting their votes in return for money, the association with other bodies, the cast and religious divides in Goa, the role of religious institutions, the money spent in constituencies on development work, etc etc etc....