MARGAO
Salcete’s main political players vying for the secular space may have a message or two from the just concluded Zilla Panchayat polls “ just watch out, the Aam Aadmi Party has made its presence felt in minority heartland where a total of eight Assembly seats are at stake
Take note AAP’s impressive gains in Salcete comes against the backdrop of the leadership issue that plagued the Salcete unit of the party in the run-up to the polls. The election result, however, has sent out a signal that notwithstanding the leadership crisis, the party managed to retain its hold on the ground.
This became amply evident by the fact that while AAP stormed into Benaulim, considered the stronghold of Nationalist Congress Party Churchill Alemao and the Congress, the party seemed to have increased its presence in other areas of Salcete as well in the just-concluded election.
Be it Colva, Nuvem, Raia, Guirdolim or Curtorim, Aam Aadmi Party candidates polled significant votes, making a big difference to the Congress fortunes in the three seats of Colva, Guirdolim and Raia, where the main opposition party lost the elections by less than 500-vote margin.
Take the case of Colva. The Congress lost the seat to the Nationalist Congress Party by a whisker, around 75 votes to be precise. Congress supporters openly concede that the presence of the AAP candidate made all the difference to the Congress candidate as AAP polled around 1431 crucial votes in Colva.
Similarly, in the battle for the Guirdolim seat, AAP polled close to 1000 votes, around 996 votes to be precise, which was enough to upset the Congress calculation as the main opposition party lost the seat by 593 votes.
In Curtorim and Nuvem too, where the party had finished third, the party managed to cross the 1000-vote barrier in each of the two seats, breaking the psychological barrier of crossing the four-digit figure.
It is not out of place to mention that AAP candidates have made a big presence in the Assembly constituencies of Benaulim, Nuvem, Velim and Cuncolim in the 2017 election, so much so that the party had surprised poll observers by finishing second in Benaulim constituency, pushing the Congress to a poor third in the ranking.
