CANACONA
Election officials may have heaved a sigh of relief as voters from Chiplem, Khalshi, Tirvonn, Badegal and Kharegal turned up in large numbers to vote at the Marlim polling station in Ward 1 of Poinguinim.
As many as 377 voters of these areas from Ward 1, which also includes Marlim and Tirval, had resolved not to vote in protest against the continuous reservation of Ward 1 to one single ST community for three successive terms.
Mamlatdar and Canacona Returning Officer Manoj Korgaonkar along with Dy Collector (Canacona) Ramesh Gaonkar visited the voters of Khalshi, Chiplem, Tirvonn, Badegal and Kharegal to persuade them to vote on Wednesday. They requested the locals to come out and vote en mase as a means to express their protest.
Meanwhile, voting in all seven panchayats of Canacona passed off peacefully as votersexercised their franchise to elect 56 new panch members from among 169 candidates on Wednesday. As many as 22,568 voters (82.84%) of the 27,224 cast their votes in Canacona.
While there was just below 50% turnout in the first four hours till 12 pm, voting picked up and rose to 77.53% by 4 pm.
There were no untoward incidents except for a minor verbal scuffle over parking/stationing of vehicles very close to one of the polling stations in Agonda. The sector officer, however, immediately directed police to enforce traffic discipline and police did not allow vehicles inside the compound of the polling station.
A Covid patient in full PPE kit came to vote at Ward 2 of Agonda panchayat during the last hour of polling.
However, several people reportedly complained of the presence of people who are not panchayat voters frequenting polling booths, particularly at Shrishthal, Agonda and Poinguinim.
While police teams were stationed at every polling station, sector officers were seen taking rounds to take stock of the elections.
Canacona PI Chandrakant Gawas confirmed the polls were overall peaceful and no untoward incident was reported in any of the 56 booths that went to polls on Wednesday.
