Salcete tally, additional votes in hinterland assembly segments hold key to Congress, BJP fortunes
MARGAO
A tsunami of voters was what was expected by Congress candidate Captain Viriato Fernandes in the May 7 Lok Sabha poll for the South Goa seat.
A tsunami of sorts did hit the South Goa constituency, with a whopping 4.45 lakh voters, around 74.47 per cent of the electorate casting their votes on Tuesday election. Let’s, however, get down to brass-tacks to find out whether the tsunami will favour the Congress to retain the South Goa seat or pave way for the Lotus to bloom and regain the seat.
The key question here is whether Tuesday’s polling will keep Congress in good stead in its traditional stronghold of Salcete and, whether the party will be in a position to overcome the drought like situation it faces in the hinterland of South Goa constituency every election.
Consider the poll statistics at the May 7 election. There are a total of 1,71,568 voters from Salcete which has eight Assembly segments, including the minorities dominated segments of Velim, Benaulim, Nuvem, Curtorim, Navelim, besides Cuncolim, Fatorda and Margao.
Now compare the Salcete voting statistics to polling in the eight assembly segments in the hinterland talukas – Ponda, Shiroda, Madkai, Sanvordem, Sanguem, Curchorem, Quepem and Canacona – which have recorded a total voting of 1,92,360 votes.
A mere comparison of voting in Salcete and the hinterland segments would reveal that around 20,792 additional votes have been polled in eight hinterland segments.
Moreover, the four segments in Mormugao taluka comprising of Mormugao, Vasco, Dabolim and Cortalim, which is presently held by the BJP and an Independent MLA, have reported around 80,979 voting in Tuesday’s election.
A higher turnout of voters in the eight hinterland segments, where the BJP wields considerable influence must have emboldened even Chief Minister Pramod Sawant to make a statement that the party would virtually lead in the hinterland segments, even as Congress claimed that not all the votes polled in the eight hinterland areas of South Goa will go to the BJP.
The opposition party, however, faces a crucial question – whether the extra 20,792 votes polled in the hinterland areas will prove decisive in the final poll outcome.
That would bring to the fore another moot question, what had come in the way of the INDIA bloc to get voters out in the eight Salcete Assembly segment, when the alliance partners are representing in as many as four Assembly segments in the minority-dominated taluka.
Questions are also being raised in political circles whether the turnout of 1.71 lakh voters in Salcete will help the Congress take an unassailable lead of a minimum 60,000 votes, leave alone the projected 70,000.
The BJP is, nonetheless, brimming with confidence that the party will take a sizeable lead in Margao, besides expecting an improvement in party’s performance in Fatorda, Curtorim, Navelim and Cuncolim, all coming under Salcete.
The Congress, however, is pinning its hopes in the two segments of Quepem and Curchorem in Quepem taluka, which has reported around 48,318 polling. For, the party is not only expecting a lead in the Quepem segment, which is represented in the Goa Legislative Assembly by Quepem MLA Altone D’Costa, but hopes to do well in neighbouring Curchorem segment as well represented by BJP MLA Nilesh Cabral.
Congress leaders in private say if the Congress manage to secure even a bare minimum lead in Quepem segment, it would go a long way in checkmating the BJP in the remaining six assembly segments of Ponda, Shiroda, Madkai, Sanvordem, Sanguem and Canacona, where the saffron party is anticipating higher vote lead in favour of candidate Pallavi Dempo.
