CANACONA
The BJP destroyed the opposition by grabbing both Zilla Panchayat seats in Canacona taluka.
While Shanu Velip reclaimed the Khola ZP seat, Shobana Velip won the Poinguinim BJP seat.
KHOLA ZP
Shanu Velip secured a sizeable 4,620 votes and won by a massive margin of 3,576 votes, after defeating Congress candidate Rajesh Velip (1,308) and AAP candidate Remy Borges (1,098).
Such was Velip’s winning margin of 3,277 votes, that it was nearly to the total votes (3,780) polled by all opposition candidates, the Congress, AAP and independent candidates, Dayanand Phaldessai (188), Dilkush (386), Guru (622) and Praveen (143).
Incidentally, this will be Shanu Velip’s's third tenure as ZP member, having got elected twice previously on the Congress ticket.
The dominance of BJP and downfall of Congress was so evident that BJP led in 18 of the 22 booths and AAP candidate, Remy Borges, led in three booths, (two in Agonda and one at Bhatpal-Shristhal), while the Congress could only lead in one booth of Nuem-Shristhal.
Meanwhile, 138 votes were declared as invalid at the Khola ZP poll.
POINGUINIM ZP
In a straight fight for the Poinguinim ZP seat reserved for ST women, BJP’s Shobana Velip polled 5,525 votes, while Congress candidate Reshma Velip could secure only 2,567 votes. There were 300 votes rejected as invalid votes at the polls.
It was another rude shock for the Congress as its candidate lost miserably by a high margin of 2,958 votes.
The BJP was also dominant at the Poinguinim ZP poll, leading in 24 of 29 polling booths, while Congress could only lead in five booths, four in Poinguinim and one at Badsarem-Cotigao.
An upbeat BJP team attributed the twin wins to the collective working of three leaders, Canacona MLA Isidore Fernandes, former minister Ramesh Tawadkar and former MLA Vijay Poi Khot, for the Poinguinim ZP poll and Kavlekar, Fernandes and Tawadkar for the Khola ZP poll.
GPCC General Secretary Janardhan Bhandari and other Congress leaders attributed the defeat to “hoodwinking of the electorate with concocted lies of never achieved promises.”
“While we did not get the time to re-establish contact with the electorate, the ruling party used the non-campaigning period to approach the electorate with fake promises and our innocent voters fell prey to them,” Bhandari said.
