MAPUSA
Amid the growing Covid-19 scare, voters, all masked up, made a beeline to the polling booths in Mapusa with 68.57 per cent of the electorate exercising their franchise for the civic election on Friday.
The voting percentage was, however, around 7 per cent lesser compared to the 2015 council election, which recorded a voting of 75.29 per cent.
Apart from some complaints from opposition candidates on procedure of sealing of ballot boxes in some wards, polling, by and large, was incident-free.
Brisk voting was reported in many wards since 8 am, as a large number of people came out to vote probably to avoid the summer heat later in the day. As expected polling slowed down mid-noon and gained speed later in the evening.
The overall turnout till noon was 34.8 per cent which went up to 50.21 per cent at 2 pm.
The highest voting percentage was registered in ward 14 which recorded 76.12 per cent, followed by ward 16 recording 75.93 per cent voting.
Similarly, the lowest voting took place in ward 11 which recorded 49.83 per cent. The ward was reserved for Scheduled Caste (women).
The overall election process was peaceful except for some confusion over the procedure of sealing of ballot boxes at the end of the polling in four wards of Khorlim and ward 11 and ward 6.
Returning Officer Mamu Hage reportedly called all the candidates and opened the ballot boxes and resealed them in their presence.
Convenor of Mapusa Development Front Rupesh Kamat said the voting pattern was fairly better than what was expected.
He said the voting percentage was affected for two reasons “ the holiday factor and the Covid situation.
“If the election was held on a Sunday then the voting would be a little different and on the higher side. Many people working at other places had to attend duty and may have not come to vote. Secondly, since it was the weekly Friday market in Mapusa, most voters belonging to the business community were involved in their business activity,” Kamat said.
“A lot of elderly people also did not come to vote due to the current Covid situation in the State,” he added.
Former chairperson Michael Carrasco, who is part of the Mhapshekarancho Ekvott, said the voters were very unpredictable and it was a little difficult to predict the voting trend.
“It is a bit confusing. The voters were very secretive, making it difficult which way they would vote,” said Carrasco, who is contesting in Ward 4 and has fielded his daughter in Ward 3.
“Many of the minority voters did not come out due to the Covid situation which could help the election to swing the BJP way,” he added.
