BJP will win South Goa seat by over 45,000 vote margin: Sudin

Staff Reporter

Panaji

Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) leader and Power Minister Ramakrishna ‘Sudin’ Dhavalikar claimed that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate for South Goa Pallavi Dempo will win the Lok Sabha seat by a minimum margin of 45,000 votes.

Speaking to the media on Tuesday in Panaji, Dhavalikar said that the MGP vote share has gone up and it will help both the BJP candidates in North Goa and South Goa in ensuing Lok Sabha polls to be held on May 7, 2024.

He also said that the Congress party doesn’t have candidates for Lok Sabha seats in Goa. The party is yet to declare its candidates for the two
seats.

The MGP senior leader further said that the BJP will repeat the history that was created in 2014 in South Goa wherein BJP candidate Narendra Sawaikar had won the seat by nearly 29,000 vote margin. “This time the margin of South Goa BJP candidate would be minimum 45,000,” he said.

With Congress facing strong anti-incumbency in 2014, BJP led by Narendra Modi, created a wave and its impact was felt in Goa. Shripad Naik won by more than one lakh margin against Ravi Naik of the Congress. Sawaikar had defeated Aleixo Reginaldo Lourenco of the Congress in South Goa.

Five years later, the scene changed a bit in South Goa politics. A week after Pramod Sawant took over the reins of the state in March 2019, Manohar Azgaonkar and Deepak Pauskar split from the three-member MGP and joined BJP in a late night development. Very next day MGP leader Ramkrishna ‘Sudin’ Dhavalikar who was deputy CM was dropped from the cabinet by Sawant. This proved costly for the BJP in the April 23, 2019 Lok Sabha polls. In what was seen as an act of vengeance, Dhavalikar supported Congress helping Sardinha in three assembly segments of Ponda taluka – in Madkai, Ponda and Shiroda. In 2014 when Sawaikar had won the South Goa seat, Dhavalikar had worked for BJP giving them a huge lead in the Ponda taluka. This time, with Dhavalikar in the cabinet besides Ravi Naik (Ponda) and Subhash Shirodkar (Shiroda), BJP expect to get a massive lead in the Ponda
taluka.

When asked about any impact of the Revolutionary Goan Party, Dhavalikar said that it is not a political party. “They just create chaos; you cannot call it a political party,” he stated.