MARGAO
Margao Municipal Council enjoys a rich history of electing its Municipal chairpersons and vice-chairperson via the time-tested secret ballot, barring the 1997 election for the civic chief.
In the 1997 election, the Presiding Officer had put in arrangements for the ballot box, the voting compartment and the ballot papers to elect a new chairperson. But, as it had turned out, a group of councillors had opened cast their vote without going to the voting compartment before inserting the ballots in the ballot box.
Councillor Savio Coutinho was elected the Municipal Chairperson in the 1997 election, but not before the election process triggered an uproar, led by then opposition councillor and present BJP-backed councillor Sadanand Naik. The plea advanced by Sadanand and the opposition group was that the councillors cannot cast their vote on the ballot in public by violating secrecy. It was then argued that the councillors had cast their vote publicly to ensure that no member from the group cross-voted in favour of the rival candidate in the fray.
Former Chairperson Savio Coutinho admitted that the group of councillors had cast their vote publicly without going to the voting compartment. He, however, hastened to add that the Presiding Officer had complied with the procedure of putting the ballot box and the voting compartments in place, besides the ballot papers. “My election was not by show of hands. But, somehow, the councillors supporting my candidature cast their ballots at the meeting table itself without going to the voting compartment before inserting the ballots in the ballot box,” he recalled.
