Staff Reporter

Panaji

With the Election Commission of India (ECI) declaring the schedule for the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections, political parties are gearing up for the electoral battle. This time, they will get nearly 50 days for campaigning in Goa for the two seats.

BJP, Congress and Revolutionary Goans (RG) party on Saturday said that their machinery has already been set rolling for the May 7 polls.

In 2019, the Lok Sabha elections held in Goa on April 23, the poll schedule was announced on March 10 and counting took place on May 23. Comparatively, the candidates for Goa’s two seats will get more time than the previous elections.

Both BJP and Congress had said that they would announce their candidates before the election schedule is announced by ECI. BJP has only announced its candidate for North Goa Lok Sabha seat while for South Goa the ruling party is likely to finalise its candidate
within two days.

Chief Minister Pramod Sawant has said that the central leadership will decide whether the candidate will be a woman or not. If not a woman, then the choice will be between former MP Narendra Sawaikar and former deputy chief minister Chandrakant ‘Babu’ Kavlekar.

On the other hand, Congress party is still in a dilemma over finalising its candidates for the two Goa seats. For the first time, Congress has the support of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) who is a constituent of INDIA bloc. Revolutionary Goans Party, a youngest regional outfit, has declared its candidate for both the seats.

In 2019 Lok Sabha elections, out of total 11,17,209 voters, 8,53,203 voters came out for polling. In North Goa, 4,28,628 votes out of total 5,45,009 electoral were polled and in South Goa out of total 5,72,200 electoral, 4,24,575 votes were polled.

In the 2019 Lok Sabha election, BJP candidate and sitting MP Shripad Naik had polled 2,44,844 votes, Congress candidate Girish Chodankar gained 1,64,597 votes in North Goa. That election, history was created by Naik by winning the seat for the fifth
consecutive time.

In South Goa, Congress candidate Francisco Sardinha won the seat by securing 2,01,561 votes and BJP candidate Narendra Sawaikar had polled 1,91,806 votes. AAP could gain just 3.01% votes in both the Parliamentary seats in Goa. In 2019 Lok Sabha elections, BJP’s vote share in North Goa was 57.12% and in South Goa was 45.18%. Whereas Congress vote share in North Goa was 38.40% and in South was 47.47%. The number of voters during the Goa assembly elections held in 2022 was
11,64,224.

So far, the election atmosphere appears subdued and only after around two weeks or so, election fever may grip the state, according to election observers. In 2019, the political landscape was more feverish quite early as there were four bypolls along with the parliamentary polls. And the bypolls were to decide who would rule Goa after the results. Bypolls were held for Shiroda and Mandrem wherein Subhash Shirodkar and Dayanand Sopte had joined the BJP from the Congress. Bye-elections for the capital city Panaji was necessitated following the demise of former chief minister Manohar Parrikar and Mapusa bypoll was due to the death of former deputy chief minister Francis D’Souza.

Mapusa seat was won by D’Souza son’ Joshua while Shirodkar and Sopte were re-elected this time on BJP ticket. The prestigious seat of Panaji which Parrikar had represented for nearly 25 years, was lost to the Congress where in Atanasio ‘Babush’ Monserrate won the seat for the Congress. But within a few months, he and nine other Congress MLAs had joined the BJP giving stability to Pramod Sawant government.