MLA assures to give minimum 10,000 vote lead for BJP, but observers claim it won’t be easy task; Oppn eyes traditional party votes, INDIA allies’ assistance to checkmate Kamat in his fiefdom
MARGAO
When Congress-turned-BJP Margao MLA Digambar Kamat launched South Goa candidate Pallavi Dempo’s campaign over a fortnight ago, he thundered that Madgavkars will give minimum 10,000 vote lead for the BJP in the May 7 polls.
How Kamat has arrived at the figure of 10,000 vote-margin has since become a subject of debate – whether the assessment is based on the 2022 Assembly poll results, wherein the seven-time Margao MLA had led over BJP’s Manohar Ajgaonkar by a whopping 7,794 vote margin.
Or, is it that Kamat has calculated the 10,000 vote margin based on the simple arithmetic of adding the votes polled by him in the 2022 Assembly polls, around 13,674 votes to be precise and Ajgaonkar’s 5,880 votes, which works out almost 20,000 votes, around 19,554 vote to be precise, since he is now part of the BJP.
Notwithstanding the vote margin target and the calculations, undercurrents in the lanes and by-lanes in the commercial capital, however, does not seem to suggest that Kamat and the BJP will have a free run. It’s true that the Congress party organisation in Margao is no match to the Kamat-BJP combine. In fact, the Congress had to literally go on a hunting mode for the last two years to find a replacement for the Margao block after the rank and file defected to the BJP along with Kamat lock, stock and barrel.
Political observers, however, sounded a word of caution for the seasoned former Chief Minister.
Kamat’s overconfidence in setting up a target of 10,000 vote lead in Margao notwithstanding, observers say the Margao MLA now runs the risk of losing his loyal and traditional Congress voters, comprising of the Catholics and Muslims, who had stood behind him in his political journey during his 17-year stint with the Congress.
It’s precisely this factor that the city-based Congress leaders are trying to exploit in a bid to reduce BJP’s lead in Margao setting the stage for a keen tussle in the May 7 Lok Sabha poll. If sources are to be believed, the Congress leadership has been primarily concentrating on the traditional Congress vote, which also has been Kamat’s vote bank in the last 17 years. The entry of Goa Forward chief Vijai Sardesai into Margao in support of the INDIA bloc candidate has lent strength to the anti-Kamat campaign, with observers pinning hopes on the neighbouring Fatorda MLA to tap his connections and corner the Margao MLA in his own bastion.
The INDIA bloc must be also hoping to tap the resentment in the BJP camp, the camp loyal to former Chief Minister late Manohar Parrikar, over Kamat’s return to the BJP fold after 17 years.
Political observers, however, say that Kamat’s stranglehold over his vote bank, spread across the migrant-inhabited Moti Dongor to Azad Nagar and right up to Khareband will come in handy for the BJP to win big, unless the INDIA bloc manages to storm the migrant vote bank this time round.
Stats reveal BJP enjoyed upper hand in Margao with Digambar in party
