MARGAO
The Revolutionary Goans Party juggernaut failed to impress in the Congress stronghold of Salcete, but made impressive inroads into the hinterland talukas, affecting BJP candidate Pallavi Dempo’s vote lead in the scheme of things.
RGP candidate Rubert Pereira ended his Lok Sabha campaign by polling 18,885 votes, and finishing third in the race.
However, unlike the 2022 Assembly polls, when the RGP had upset the Congress applecart by making huge inroads in Salcete, the regional outfit did not cut much ice in the minority dominated taluka in the Lok Sabha polls.
Out of the 18,885 votes polled by Pereira, RGP could garner only around 4,536 votes in Salcete, indicating that the regional party could not make a dent in the minority areas, just two years after the party had made an impressive debut in the taluka.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the Aam Aadmi Party had polled around 21,000 votes, with the Arvind Kejriwal party polling 13,000 votes in Salcete taluka. A glance at the final tally of votes shows that the RGP could not cross the four-digit number in any of the eight Assembly segments of Salcete.
That’s not all, only in the three segments of Nuvem, Curtorim and Cuncolim, the RGP could cross the 500-vote mark with the party polling highest number of votes in Nuvem, around 813 votes to be precise.
Even in Rubert Pereira’s home segment of Curtorim, where he had polled impressive votes in the 2022 Assembly election, he could barely manage to poll 790 votes this time round.
The regional outfit, however, may have ended its campaign by making a dent in the MGP-BJP strongholds in the hinterland talukas, especially around the Madkai, Ponda, Shiroda, Sanvordem, Sanguem, Canacona and Congress-represented Quepem segments.
In fact, the RGP polled 2,000-plus vote in Ramkrishna Dhavalikar’s Madkai, besides Shiroda represented by Minister Subhash Shirodkar and Sanvordem, the constituency represented by BJP MLA Ganesh Gaonkar.
In Madkai, Rubert polled an impressive 2,839 votes in Madkai, 2,809 in Shiroda, 2,069 in Sanvordem, 1,142 votes in Ponda, and 1,029 in Quepem. That the RGP ended its campaign by polling 936 votes in Canacona, 931 in Sanguem and 555 votes in Curchorem indicates that the regional outfit has made its presence felt in the BJP areas in the Lok Sabha polls.
Even as observers are trying to figure out who amongst the political players have been hit the most by RGP’s presence in the Lok Sabha polls in the hinterland areas, observers say that regional party vote share in Madkai, Ponda, Shiroda and Sanvordem must have affected the ruling dispensation more than the Congress, especially in the segments of Madkai and Sanvordem, where the Congress has little presence.
