PANAJI
If nine MLAs of the outgoing Goa legislative assembly had won their 2017 election by a whisker, the battle for a seat in the House at the February 14 election could be much tighter in several more than nine seats, with multiple political parties and grassroot satraps throwing their hats in the ring.
The margins were under 1,000 votes five years ago in nine constituencies. In Cuncolim, barely 33 votes separated current MLA Clafacio Dias from his challenger Joaquim Alemao.
The battle for Cuncolim this time around has Dias trying to ward off the challenge of Alemao's son Yuri who has been fielded by the Congress. The former is fighting as the BJP candidate but with Dr Jorson Fernandes of the TMC and Aam Aadmi Party's (AAP) Prashant Naik also in the fray has added more complexity to the tussle.
Mormugao was another constituency in 2017 where just 140 votes separated former minister Milind Naik (BJP) and his challenger Sankalp Amonkar (Congress). This time around the battle between the duo repeats.
Former minister Alina Saldanha (Cortalim), Antonio (Tony) Fernandes (St Cruz), Speaker Rajesh Patnekar (Bicholim) and Nilkanth Halarnkar (Thivim) all won their 2017 contests by margins of 518, 642, 666 and 795 votes respectively.
Saldanha who has quit the BJP and is fighting this time as an AAP candidate is again facing her 2017 challenger Antonio Vas (Independent). Her nephew who last time had represented the AAP is now the Congress candidate there.
Patnekar too faces his last time's challenger Naresh Sawal (MGP) while a third strong candidate in the fray for Bicholim is Dr Chandrakant Shetye, an Independent backed by AAP.
St Cruz MLA, Antonio (Tony) Fernandes is again in the fray, this time having switched sides from Congress to BJP. He faces the challenge of Congress' Rudolf Fernandes and AAP's chief ministerial face, Adv Amit Palekar.
In Tivim, Halarnkar's 2017 rivalry with Kiran Kandolkar is this time being taken forward by the latter's wife Kavita on a TMC ticket, while Kiran himself has shifted to the neighbouring Aldona constituency.
Former Independent Sanguem MLA, Prasad Gaonkar, is another of the 2017 winners who made it with a margin of less than 1000 votes. He had defeated the BJP's Subhash Phaldesai by 937 votes.
This time Gaonkar is the Congress candidate while the ruling BJP has fielded Phaldesai again.
All these tight battles in the 2017 election and the eventual hung assembly it threw up reflected the fractured polity of the State then. Five years later the scene is as fractured if not worse as the ruling BJP, the main Opposition party Congress and the two regional parties -- MGP and Goa Forward Party -- joined in the battle for space in the House of 40 by a spirited AAP and a flashy TMC.
