AGNELO PEREIRA
MAPUSA
Door-to-door campaign is the toast of the season with almost all the candidates preferring to maintain personal contact with the voters in Bardez taluka.
Aam Aadmi Party had a head start to their campaign as they had started meeting people almost a year back.
BJP successfully organised more than 30 “Vijay Sankalp” rallies across the State to maintain contact with the voters since the last two months.
Later, Congress tried to close the gap with the voters by organising a “padyatra” which kicked off in Pernem and wound through most of the constituencies.
The delay in distribution of party tickets has had some effect on Congress candidates. Most of them have concentrated their energies on door-to-door campaign to make good the time.
“For me, door-to-door contact is important then corner meetings as I have to reach out to maximum number of people,” said Amarnath Panjikar, Congress candidate of Aldona indicating that late declaration of candidature had created some discomfiture.
He quickly added that earlier he had met the voters while distributing a chargesheet against the BJP-led government.
He further said that public meetings were just a show and very few people attend such corner and public meetings.
Congress’ Saligao candidate, Agnelo Fernandes, too has focused on door-to-door campaign as he has to cover the whole constituency within 12 days.
Congress took considerable time to decide on alliance with the Goa Forward Party and finally settled for the two-time Calangute MLA as its candidate in Saligao.
“I agree the party delayed in declaring my candidature but I will manage to cover the area in good time,” Fernandes said. “Part of Saligao constituency was formerly with Calangute and people in those areas already know me,” he added.
Similarly, Congress candidates in Mapusa and Calangute have admitted the tight schedule for campaign and focused their energy on door-to-door contacts with people.
AAP had received a head start to its campaign connecting with people by holding corner meetings in various constituencies to draft individual constituency manifestos.
"We have finished one round of meeting people long time back. We are now in our second and in some places third round," said Ursula D'Souza, AAP candidate of Aldona.
Although most of the BJP MLAs have been in touch with their voters by virtue of being in power they have also concentrated on door-to-door meetings with the candidates.
“We have finished corner meetings before the code of conduct could come into play. Now we are focusing on door-to-door campaign,” said Michael Lobo, BJP’s Calangute candidate.
All the three ministers including the deputy chief minister and MLAs in Bardez have been moving from door-to-door to establish a personal contact with the electorate in their own areas.
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MAPUSA: Apart from the local karyakartas BJP leaders/karyakartas from other parts of the country have come down to Goa to give fillip to party’s campaign for the 2017 assembly poll.
“Some BJP leaders from Maharashtra and Karnataka have been deployed in different constituencies where the party is contesting,” a BJP member said.
The outstation observer sits with booth level karyakartas analyzing the voters list and discussing strategy for the polls.
“Along with the local booth karyakartas the voters list is fragmented community-wise and after taking inputs from the karyakartas, the observer offers tips how to win over those who are on border-line,” the BJP member disclosed.
The BJP is leaving nothing to chance after losing out the services of the cadre along with former RSS chief, Subash Velingkar.
Velingkar who formed the Goa Suraksha Manch is fighting the election along with MGP and Shiv Sena against the BJP.
