the goan I network
PANAJI
Though the Congress’ Girish Chodankar lost the general elections by an over-80,000 vote margin, the Congress actually led in four of the 20 constituencies of North Goa this election. In three of these constituencies, the BJP had got leads in the last election.
This time round, the Congress scored over the BJP in four constituencies, where last time they had a lead, and that too a very narrow one, in just one i.e. Calangute. This time round, the constituencies of Taleigao, St Cruz and St Andre joined the voters of Calangute in giving the Congress leads, where the BJP had been the preferred choice in 2014.
However, the BJP’s Shripad Naik kept up good leads in the remaining 16 constituencies in 2019, in some cases more than double of what Chodankar polled, making it impossible for Congress to catch up even though it had good voting in four constituencies.
This year, in Calangute, 10,151 of the voters chose the Congress as opposed to only 7,693 choosing the BJP. In Taleigao, the Congress led by 1,648 votes, polling 10,906 over the BJP’s 9,258. In St Cruz, the Congress had a slightly bigger lead of 2,866, polling 11,478 votes as opposed to the BJP’s 8,612. And lastly in St Andre, the Congress held a less than 1,000-vote lead polling 7,500 votes over BJP’s 6,650.
In the last general election, the Congress held a lead in Calangute by just 115 votes polling 8,302 where the BJP had polled 8,187. And in the other three constituencies i.e. Taleigao, St Cruz and St Andre, here’s how the BJP had fared last time: Its lead in Taleigao over the Congress was 938, in St Cruz it had been a mere 349 votes, and in St Andre it was 1,358.
This time, in constituencies like Pernem, Bicholim, Mayem, Poriem, Valpoi and Priol, the BJP scored thumping leads i.e. more than double of the voters who voted for the Congress voted for the BJP. Even though Poriem is represented by a Congress MLA in the Goa Assembly (Pratapsingh Rane), 16,580 votes went to the BJP, whereas only 7,561 votes went to the Congress.
In fact, in 2014, the BJP had only narrowly got a lead in Poriem with 1,138 votes more than the Congress. The same was the story with the other constituencies which rallied in thousands around Naik this time round.
