Torsem ZP winner Sima Khadpe along with Deputy Chief Minister Babu Ajgaonkar and BJP supporters. Captured by : Nivrutti Shirodkar
PERNEM
The BJP’s efforts to take complete control of Pernem taluka at the ZP polls received a setback when two of its candidates lost in Arambol and Morjim, while managing successes in Torsem and Dhargal.
The two big winners were independent candidates, while the ZP polls in Pernem were a complete defeat for the Congress and MGP.
It was a nail-biting finish in two ZP elections, with the BJP candidate winning by a wafer-thin margin of just 55 votes at the Dhargal ZP election and an independent candidate winning by an even closer margin of 24 votes at the Morjim ZP election.
DHARGAL ZP
It was a tight contest between the BJP and MGP for the Dhargal ZP election, with BJP's Manohar Dhargalkar winning by a wafer-thin margin of just 55 votes. While Dhargalkar polled 3,477 votes, the MGP candidate, Atmaram Dhargalkar, secured 3,422 votes.
The other independent candidates fared poorly with Harishchandra Parsekar (846), Pundalik Dhargalkar (353), Gurudas Virnodkar (160) and Dnyaneshwar Varkhandkar (151) getting negligible votes.
Deputy Chief Minister Babu Ajgaonkar credited Dayanand Sopte for the victory, while a jubilant Manohar Dhargalkar credited his win to Sopte, Ajgaonkar and BJP.
TORSEM ZP
What was initially believed to be a tight contest for the Torsem ZP seat eventually became an easy contest for winning BJP candidate, Sima Khadpe, who secured 4,222 votes and defeating MGP's Priyanka Mahale (2,456 votes) by a margin of 1,766 votes.
Independent candidate, Bharati Sawal, polled a sizeable 2,175 votes, while Shanti Korgaonkar polled only 260 votes.
ARAMBOL ZP
Independent candidate Ranganath Kalshavkar (4,081) defeated BJP's Anant Gadekar (3,363) to win the Arambol ZP election by 719 votes.
Congress candidate Narayan Redkar finished third with 3,039 votes, while NCP's Naresh Korgaonkar (115) and independent Bharat Naik (113) hardly made any impact.
While thanking the voters, Kalshavkar said, "I don't consider this a victory against any political party but rather, it's a victory of the voters. All panchayat members and villagers from Korgao, Arambol, Paliem and Keri stood behind me when I decided to contest the ZP election. It's their victory.”
Incidentally, NCP's Naresh Korgaonkar had backed out from the election too late and his candidature remained on the ballot paper and 115 people voted for him.
MORJIM ZP
It was a major setback for Mandrem MLA Dayanand Sopte when his candidate, Dhananjay Shetgaonkar, lost to independent candidate, Satish Shetgaonkar, by another wafer-thin margin of only 24 votes in a nail-biting finish at the Morjim ZP election.
Satish Shetgaonkar secured 2,930 votes while Dhananjay Shetgaonkar got 2906 votes, followed by MGP's Shridhar Manjrekar (2,673) AAP candidate Prasad Shahapurkar (801), Congress candidate Mahesh Konadkar (252), and NCP's Joao Fernandes (93).
The margin of defeat was so close that Dhananjay Shetgaonkar sought a recount of the votes as he was trailing by just 24 votes, but a recount did not change the final results.
Incidentally, both Mahesh Konadkar and Joao Fernandes had withdrawn their names from the polls too late and still received votes as their names were printed on the ballots.
Satish Shetgaonkar is first candidate from Morjim to be elected as a ZP member.
"Voters have responded with whatever good work I did as sarpanch. They were tired of Manjrekar and wanted a change. I will work to ensure that I live up to their trust," he said.
