Panaji: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) may have recorded a landslide victory in the zilla panchayat polls, winning 33 out of 49 seats. But, the ruling party’s results in the BJP stronghold of Mandrem assembly constituency are an absolute contrast from the overall state tally of seats. Both party seats in Mandrem have been lost to independent candidates.
While chief minister Pramod Sawant has claimed that the ZP polls were a test for his government, in Mandrem the outcome of this test has sparked a political debate across sections ahead of the general elections in 2022.
BJP’s Anant Gadekar lost in Arambol, while Dhananjay Shetgaonkar lost the Morjim seat. Mandrem assembly constituency is presently being represented by Congress-turned-BJP MLA, via the 2019 byelections, Dayananad Sopte.
In Pernem taluka, there are four ZP constituencies. And the MGP-turned-BJP Pernem MLA and deputy chief minister Manohar Ajgaonkar has managed to hold the fort and win his two ZP constituencies — Dhargal and Torsem.
The results show that parts of Mandrem constituency—Parsem, Tuem and Virnoda—managed to give a lead to BJP candidate Manohar Dhargalkar from Dhargal constituency. But in Korgao village, which is part of the Pernem assembly constituency, the results could not turn in favour of BJP Arambol candidate. Ironically, Pernem and Mandrem are represented by BJP MLAs.
According to those in the know, independent winner from Arambol Ranganath Kalshawkar is a die-hard Ajgaonkar supporter.
In Morjim constituency, nearly 6,800 votes appear to have gone against BJP.
With just a few days to go for the Zilla Panchayat elections, Congress candidate from Morjim Mahesh Konadkar had announced his support to MGP. Still Congress polled 252 votes. If added to MGP votes, MGP’s tally would have been 2,925. The winner here polled 2,930 votes and BJP lost by 24 votes as they polled 2,906 votes.
“The results reflect that there is no proper coordination between MGP and Congress as Congress leader Ramakant Khalap and the party’s 2019 byelection candidate Babi Bagkar supported independent candidate and the winner Satish Shetgaonkar in Morjim,” said a local observer.
Similarly, in Arambol, MGP instead of supporting the Congress candidate supported independent Ranganath Kalshawkar, who went on to win the polls.
Former chief minister Laxmikant Parsekar has said that the history of election results in Mandrem shows that the winner here has always been from BJP, MGP or Congress and it is for the first time an independent candidate has been elected which reflects that voters are unhappy with the leaders of both Congress and BJP. He said that the party should analyse the results and pinpoint their weaknesses.