Debutants’ LS poll experiment to galvanize Christian vote bank a nonstarter in city

Nagpur: The foray of two Christian candidates in Nagpur’s Lok Sabha elections proved to be an anticlimax as their combined votes failed to cross even 1,100-mark.
Reuben Dominic Francis, an independent candidate, polled 608 votes while Hum Bharatiya Party’s Vitthal Gaikwad got 482 votes. The experiment, which was primarily done to test waters and gauge the potential vote bank for the upcoming assembly elections, seemed to have clearly failed to elicit the anticipated response.
Francis said the figures came as a shock but he now looks forward to improving this tally in the next elections. “This was the first election for me and the result is definitely shocking. Before the elections, there was a lot of negative environment against BJP and, therefore, we expected 40 to 50 % of votes in our favour. I positively look forward to fighting the state elections as politics could give us the platform to gain power which would be used to do social work more effectively,” he said.
The other candidate Gaikwad was not available for comments.
Former school principal Michael Morde said the experiment was a non-starter. “Everyone has the freedom to contest polls, but we had advised them that it won’t make much sense. I believe it is not wise to elect a representative from each community as this would have a bad effect on the democracy,” said Morde.
Entrepreneur Ajay Philips thinks while one should appreciate new entrants in politics, the strategy has to be right. “It’s wise to vote for national parties and not divide the votes among small, independent candidates. I think the Christian community comprises a small chunk of the voting population and it would not make a difference. I appreciate that they tried but they should have taken calculated risk rather than being too much confident. Nevertheless, there are some deserving independent candidates as well who have proved themselves and then fought the elections,” said Philips.
Vikrant Waghchore, a Christian community member who works with a logistics company, said the Lok Sabha platform was probably too big for the debutants. “Lok Sabha is too huge constituency-wise and by the time Francis firmed up his plans, majority of Christians had probably committed their votes to others. State elections could be the right platform for him to contest and I look forward to supporting him,” he said.