CANACONA
When as many as 28,114 voters or 82.11% of the electorate in Canacona constituency turned out to exercise their franchise despite a Covid pandemic, it was a clear indication that they wanted to convey their voice and message through the ballot.
A major split in votes is expected to take place not only because of the sheer number (8) of candidates but also because three of these eight candidates had split from their parties and had contested the elections.
All these splits in parties and splits in votes have now led to hair-splitting calculations in Canacona, as candidates and their respective teams were busy analysing the voting patterns on Monday and speculating on the number of votes they may have polled.
The high turnout has now excited the eight candidates in the fray, with six of them now confident of winning in Canacona constituency.
Of the 28,114 voters who took part at the elections in Canacona, the female voters (14882) outnumbered the male voters (13232). The highest number of voters were in Canacona municipality (8353), followed by Poinguinim (4690), Gaondongrim (3709), Loliem-Polem (3411), Shrishthal (3320), Agonda (2628) and Khotigao (2003).
Former minister and BJP candidate Ramesh Tawadkar said the high turnout clearly affirmed a landslide victory for him.
“No other candidate will come even close to my margin of victory. I will get a lead in Canacona municipality, Gaondongrim, Khotigao, Shrishthal and Poinguinim. It will be a one-sided fight and I expect to poll 10,500-11,000 votes of the 28,114 votes polled on Monday,” said a confident Tawadkar.
Incidentally, Congress candidate Janardhan Bhandari also expected to poll about 10,000 votes in the election.
“At the very least and in the worst-case scenario, I should poll 8,500 votes and this is more than enough to secure me the victory,” said Bhandari.
Independent candidates, Isidore Fernandes and Vijay Poi Khot, both of whom are BJP rebels, were also confident of winning the election.
“A lot of silent voting that took place on Monday and this will benefit me. The wave in my support was clearly visible and felt all over the constituency, be it at Gaondongrim, Khotigao and my home village of Loliem-Polem, where I am expected to take a huge lead,” said Fernandes.
Isidore also expects to secure sizeable votes in Shrishthal and Canacona municipality.
Poi Khot is expected to make inroads in the BJP stronghold of Poinguinim, while Fernandes also hopes to gather crucial votes in Poinguinim, thereby splitting BJP votes in the village which had the largest number of voters.
RG candidate Prashant Pagi is expected to split the Congress votebank in Poinguinim.
Bhandari and the TMC candidate Mahadev Dessai are also expected to divide the Congress votes.
Votes polled in Canacona municipality are likely to be split between Tawadkar (BJP), Bhandari (Congress), Isidore and Poi Khot (independents) and Dessai (TMC), while some votes are expected to be shared by Revolutionary Goans candidate Prashant Pagi and AAP candidate Adv Anoop Kudtarkar.
Pagi and Kudtarkar are expected to poll some votes in their home villages of Poinguinim and Loliem-Polem respectively.
Meanwhile, election staff at the office of the Canacona Returning Officer worked till 7 am on Tuesday, with some drivers on election duty reaching their residences only by about 8 am.
