Colva offers slim consolation to AAP

AAP Colva candidate Antonio Fernandes won the seat by a narrow margin of 73 votes.

MARGAO
The victory in the Colva Zilla Panchayat seat may offer some consolation to the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which otherwise faced a major setback in Salcete, losing several key constituencies, including the crucial Benaulim and Velim seats represented by party MLAs Venzy Viegas and Cruz Silva.
AAP candidate Antonio Fernandes, popularly known as Mam, secured a narrow victory in Colva, defeating his nearest rival, Independent candidate Nelly Rodrigues, by a slender margin of just 73 votes.
While the Colva win helped the party leadership salvage some pride after a series of defeats in Salcete, the shock loss of sitting Benaulim ZP member Joseph Pimenta to Congress candidate Luiza Rodrigues cast a pall of gloom over the AAP camp. The party’s strategy of going solo and aiming for a major breakthrough in Salcete ultimately failed to deliver.
As counting progressed, AAP suffered defeats in seat after seat, including Guirdolim, Raia, Navelim, Nuvem, Velim, Curtorim and Benaulim. The party had been widely expected to perform well in Velim and Benaulim, given the sustained campaign by its leadership. Hopes were also raised in Nuvem after former MLA Wilfred D’Sa extended support to AAP candidate Luis Barretto.
Although AAP emerged as the principal challenger to the Congress in most Salcete constituencies, it failed to convert its campaign into electoral success. The party managed to win only the Colva seat — and that too by a narrow margin.
Interestingly, when AAP clinched the Colva seat, Benaulim MLA Venzy Viegas was present at the counting centre and remarked that the party had grown over the past decade — from one Zilla Panchayat seat to two MLAs and now an additional ZP seat in Colva in 2025. Moments later, however, the party faced a drubbing on his home turf, raising serious questions about AAP’s inability to make a meaningful impact on the Salcete electorate.
Political observers believe the AAP leadership will need to undertake serious introspection to understand the reasons behind the party’s poor performance in Salcete, especially when it was hoping to build momentum ahead of the 2027 Assembly elections. “The AAP leadership needs to go into introspection mode to identify the factors that led to the rejection of the party by Salcete voters. It is evident that the electorate chose to support the Congress–Goa Forward alliance. The party must understand why it failed to secure a mandate,” a political observer remarked.