PANAJI
Buoyed by the election of two councillors without a contest, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Saturday unveiled the names of 13 supported candidates for the Ponda civic election slated to be held on May 5.
BJP State president Sadanand Tanavade, who announced the names at a press conference in the presence of Agriculture Minister Ravi Naik, expressed confidence that the party will win both the Ponda and Sanquelim municipal elections with a big majority.
Rajya Sabha MP Vinay Tendulkar was also present at the presser where Tanavade claimed BJP karyakatas were already fanning out on ground zero, reaching out to voters.
Elections to Ponda and Sanquelim civic bodies will be held on May 5 and the counting will be on May 7.
Tanavade said people in both civic bodies will choose development and stable leadership over fake promises and instability.
He said Tendulkar will oversee the campaign effort from the party perspective in the Ponda election which will be a prestige issue for Ravi Naik who switched over to the saffron party on the eve of last year's assembly election and won the Ponda seat by a whisker.
Interestingly, BJP's ally in the State government, Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) will be its fierce rival in the Ponda civic poll.
Naik was made to sweat it out to win the Ponda seat by the MGP candidate Ketan Bhatikar. The former won by a little over a 100 votes. Additionally, the Congress too has fielded some candidates led by Rajesh Verenkar, who had cornered a sizeable chunk of the vote in the Assembly polls.
On the BJP and ally MGP tussle in Ponda, Tanavade said, the tie-up was executed post-assembly polls.
"We are going independently. We won both the seats (Ponda and Sanquelim). Why do we need an alliance?" Tanavade shot back.
Sanquelim poll
list not out yet
The ruling party however has not come out publicly as yet with its list of candidates for the Sanquelim civic body which is the home turf of Chief Minister Pramod Sawant.
Sawant too had won the Assembly seat narrowly with an under 600-vote margin over his Congress rival Dharmesh Sanglani.
While Sanglani's base is in the town (municipality), Sawant's and BJP's strongholds are in the outlying village panchayats and a keen tussle is expected in the May 5 poll.
