The Sakhali and Ponda Municipal poll results have been huge setbacks to local MLAs. Pramod Sawant’s BJP-supported panel managed to win only 3 seats in Sakhali with the Dharmesh Saglani-led panel making a clean sweep with 8 seats. In a high stakes contest, it was literally a decimation of Sawant’s ‘Sakhali Vikas Manch’.
In Ponda, the story was no better for the sitting MLA. Ravi Naik-supported panel could muster only 3 seats while MGP asserted their supremacy with 7 and BJP coming in second with 5. The bitter rivalries between PWD Minister Sudin Dhavalikar and Ponda MLA Ravi Naik were on display right through the contest and the results only proved to be an anti-climax for the Congress legislator. While there is a drastic drop in voter base, he will take solace from the three seats that are won this time against the lone victory in the 2013 poll.
Civic elections may not be a fair barometer to measure party successes or failures, but surely individual setbacks are counted, more especially when a MLA is at the helm. This result presents an interesting analogy where the urban electorate outrightly rejected both Ravi Naik and Pramod Sawant panels. Ravi could be given the consolation since his party is out of power coupled with the fact that he never enjoyed control over the municipality. Against this backdrop, MGP joining hands with BJP to form the council comes as no big surprise.
However, urban Sakhali throws a queer picture. Sawant despite being outrightly rejected by the electorate is busy making back door maneouvres to form the council, on the lines of BJP snatching power from the Congress Party at the State level. Perhaps Sawant forgets the public outcry and antipathy that continues to haunt the BJP since then.
Keeping in mind his stature of being a senior BJP leader and Speaker of Goa Legislative Assembly, Sawant should humbly accept the fact that he is ignominiously beaten hands down, and allow due democratic process to follow. The verdict of the people should be respected under any circumstances. Such dubious ways to cling on to power doesn’t augur well for a person who is seated at one of the highest echelons of democracy.
All the BJP strategizing has failed and Sawant, for his lust for power, doesn’t have the moral right to make any moves with the numbers which he has. The result indicates that the urban electorate has rejected the pre-poll promises that Sawant held out and spurned the development he has been assuring. For now, it is time the winners celebrate their sweet successes while the losers walk out gracefully.
