OLD GOA
Curca sarpanch Sadhana Gonsalves abruptly ended the gram sabha, on Sunday, after pandemonium prevailed over the election of Biodiversity Management Committee (BMC) chairman.
It all began with two candidates putting up their names for the BMC chairman’s post, of which one was supported by the Revolutionary Goans (RG) and the other by supporters of the ruling panel.
The secretary Keshav Phadte then said that the election to the post of chairman would be decided through voting by show of hands, in which the candidate supported by RG won hands down.
However, secretary Phadte said that after counting both the votes polled by the two candidates, the total number of voters present exceeded the voters registered on the proceedings book.
The secretary then said that re-voting will be held and asked all those present to register their names in the proceedings books.
At this point, it was observed that many persons apparently supported by members of the ruling panel rushed to get their names registered, after which the numbers registered in the proceedings books exceeded more than twice the number that was registered initially.
And in the ensuing re-voting, the candidate supported by the ruling panel got 134 votes following which it was announced that he was the winner.
Surprisingly, the panchayat authorities did not allow the counting of votes for RG backed candidate even after their two panchas Deepali and Mahanand made fervent appeals.
What followed was total pandemonium with the RG supporters refusing to accept the verdict following which St Andre MLA Viresh Borkar, who was present for the meet, intervened in a bid to resolve the deadlock.
However, former deputy sarpanch Marvin Gonsalves questioned MLA Borkar and told him that he has no right to speak at the gram sabha as he is not a voter of Curca.
This only infuriated the RG supporters and with the pandemonium showing no signs of ending, sarpanch Sadhana Gonsalves announced that she is ending the gram sabha and the entire ruling panel walked off.
However, the fiasco did not end there as supporters of RG and the ruling panel then were involved in a heated exchanges which nearly ended in blows.
When The Goan contacted sarpanch Gonsalves for her clarification, she did offer any comments.
However, the two RG panchas Deepali and Mahanand informed that they will lodge complaint against the panchayat authorities with the Tiswadi BDO and the Director of Panchayats.
