MARGAO
Congress-turned-BJP Margao MLA Digambar Kamat has given a slender lead of 1,323 votes for the BJP candidate Pallavi Dempo, but the opposition camp is upbeat and has gone into a celebration mode.
Reason: Perhaps for the first time in recent election, the Congress has managed to storm Kamat’s Moti Dongor fort, besides the basties and migrant inhabited areas of Azad Nagar, Fakir bandh and Maria bandh and areas of Khareband.
These migrant-dominated areas have been Kamat’s strongholds over the years, giving him huge and unassailable leads, which his opponents could not match. In fact, votes polled in these areas had given the seven-time Margao MLA a big advantage over his political opponents.
As news spread in the city around noon that Moti Dongor had crumbled in the Lok Sabha election, an eerie silence descended the Kamat camp, with his close aides and supporters stunned by the election results.
Take note, Chief Minister Pramod Sawant had visited Moti Dongor along with Kamat on the day of the Lok Sabha election on May 7, raising questions what role will the Chief Minister play at the migrant-inhabited basty when the area has been the Margao MLA’s voter base over the years.
In fact, the results must have come as a shocker for the seven-time MLA, who had switched sides from the Congress to the BJP in September 2022, as Kamat had initially set a target of 10,000-vote lead target in Margao.
A glance at the results showed that of the three booths at Moti Dongor, the Congress led over the BJP by a huge margin of votes. It was only at the remaining third booth that the BJP led over the Congress, but by just 10 votes.
In the first booth, the Congress polled a whopping 496 votes as against 226 by the BJP. The trend continued at another booth, where the Congress polled 395 votes as against 288 by the BJP. The BJP and the Congress polled 327 and 317 votes respectively in the third booth.
That’s not all. Kamat and the BJP could not take a lead over the Congress in the migrant inhabited Azad Nagar basty and the Fakir bandh-Maria bandh colonies.
In fact, Congress leader Savio Coutinho told the media that the Congress polled majority votes in the southern areas of Margao city, besides making a dent in Malbhat.
