the goan I network
PANAJI
Scheduled within four months of the Assembly elections, the panchayat polls echoed the popularity of the sitting MLAs. Riding on the success of the panels backed by them at the panchayat levels, a large majority of MLAs tightened their grip on grassroot-level politics.
The polls also witnessed the strengthening of rural leaders, who carved inroads into the traditional vote banks of political parties through the medium of the newly-elected panchayat bodies.
State Election Commission on Tuesday undertook the mammoth task of counting the 6.02 lakh votes cast at the polls to 175 panchayat bodies in the state. The process of counting the ballot papers began at 8 am across 21 halls at 13 centres across Goa declaring the winners from among 5,233 candidates in the fray.
By evening, the political reality of rural Goa was reflected in the landslide victory sculpted for themselves by the MLAs with almost every panel backed by a sitting MLA sweeping the polls.
The Bharatiya Janata Party claimed that the panchayat polls have successfully established the hegemony of the party in every nook and cranny of the state and that seal of approval was evident in the victory of over 90 per cent of the BJP-backed candidates.
Speaking to the media, Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar stated, “I think panchayat elections have virtually established that BJP is a main force and that too with a majority in many panchyats wherein we have won all the seats. This shows the strength. But more important aspect which has to be understood is that Congress is virtually routed. In some areas where it is not purely BJP, it is BJP plus coalition. Let me see all the results but primary indications are that we have won sufficiently large number of seats.”
It is, however, the Goa Forward Party which appears to have miraculously prevented political ebb, a rout even, which threatened its very existence following its volte face after March 11. Water Resources Minister and GF’s Siolim MLA Vinoda Palienkar as well as the Housing Minister and the party’s Saligao MLA Jayesh Salgaonkar rose from the detritus to capture the hearts of the panchayat electorate.
In North Goa, panels backed by Mandrem MLA Dayanand Sopte made a clean sweep in all the nine panchayats of the constituency.
The panels backed by Revenue Minister and Porvorim MLA Rohan Khaunte in Socorro and Salvador-do-Mundo swept the panchayat polls.
