No rivalry seen in Calangute constituency
PANAJI: Sitting MLA from BJP Michael Lobo and Congress candidate Joseph Sequeira might have turned foes this elections, but voters of all camps and groups voted extremely peacefully in Calangute constituency. In several polling booths of Calangute, groups of men and women were seeing casting their votes and the mood was overall jovial.
A number of voters, who had just turned 18, had also come to cast their votes with their parents or elder siblings. One such voter outside a polling both next to Calangute’s panchayat office said, “This is the first time I am voting and I am naturally excited. We should vote for the candidate, who we think will fulfil our expectations.”
Another voter who had just turned 18 said, “We just don’t want any trouble. We want peace for all.”
When asked on which issues votes were being cast, people threw subtle hints by using words like “secular” “communal” “change” and “development.” People seemed to be voting fearlessly across Calangute without having any pressure on them.
Moreover, most voters voting seemed to be having a mind of their own as they could explain their rationale without looking like as if they belonged to one group or the other.
Meanwhile, voting was so smooth that in several parts people hardly had to wait to cast their votes. A woman outside a polling booth in Candolim said, “There were only one or two women in the ladies queue and polling was extremely smooth.”
A number of elderly people, some of them on wheel-chairs, also came to cast their votes. Even otherwise, in many cases, senior citizens weren’t made to wait to cast their votes making things easier for them.
