CANACONA
Officially wresting back the Canacona seat into the BJP's kitty, former minister Ramesh Tawadkar re-wrote history where he once revolted to defeat BJP, now to win back the seat for the saffron brigade in a dramatic return to the party-fold.
In the 2017 Assembly elections, Tawadkar revolted against the party and contested as an Independent to fight BJP candidate Vijay Poi Khot giving the seat on a platter to Congress candidate Isidore Fernandes.
Isidore, however, later joined the BJP only to be denied the party ticket, who nominated Tawadkar, as Isidore and Khot revolted to contest as Independents in 2022.
Tawadkar, however, defeated not only both but also cut sized a rising Congress candidate Janardhan Bhandari.
Tawadkar, who polled 9,063, rallied to race ahead of former Deputy Speaker Isidore Fernandes (6,012), after initially way behind a resurgent Congress candidate Bhandari in the first of the nine rounds of counting.
Tawadkar's victory rally reached Canacona and went straight to Shri Mallikarjun temple, besides moving around the constituency. However, the victory rally was cut short as Tawadkar was urgently summoned to attend a meeting of the elected BJP candidates at the capital city by Thursday evening.
Tawadkar had an unexpected lead of 3,051 votes, keeping not only Isidore but also Janardhan way behind, who had a lead in the first round. Tawadkar overtook Janardhan by the second round itself and thereafter never looked behind, comfortably winning Canacona.
The fourth major aspirant Khot (4,791) ended up a poor fourth behind Janardhan (5,351).
This victory is the second one for Tawadkar in the constituency (2012) while the fourth one in his political journey (the other two being in the erstwhile Poinguinim constituency).
For Isidore, this is the fifth defeat in his political ladder, since he first unsuccessfully contested as an Independent in 1994 (Poinguinim constituency), two of his last defeats (2012 & 2022-present one) in the Canacona constituency.
When questioned about the poll result, Isidore refused to comment on this loss stating: "No comments, I am yet to see the booth-wise voting as such, and I will only comment after that."
While Janardhan's defeat is a raw one in his political career, this is the third defeat for Khot who twice lost as a BJP candidate (1999 and 2017) and the present one as an Independent, while he earlier won twice won (2002 & 2007).
Incidentally, Tawadkar's winning percentage is 31.11%, against Isidore's 20.64%, Janardhan (18.37%) and Khot (16.45%).
RG's Prashant Pagi getting 1,599 votes at 5.49% against TMC's Mahadev Dessai polling 1,066 (3.66%) has become a newfound political upheaval in Canacona.
While AAP with its candidate Adv Anoop Kudtarkar couldn't garner more than 835 votes, another surprise of 119 electorates voting to an unknown Independent candidate Kanay Pagi, however, failed to escape the bottom line with even as many as 296 preferred to press for NOTA.
