OLD GOA
St Cruz voters showed defector Tony Fernandes the door as Rudolf Fernandes emerged victorious to keep the Congress flag flying high in the constituency.
Rudolf secured a total of 8,841 votes while Tony could garner only 6,377 to ensure that the former won by a margin of 2,464 votes.
With this win, Rudolf ended his two-time losing streak to walk into the footsteps of his mother late Victoria Fernandes who had represented the constituency four times.
Several factors contributed to the victory of Rudolf as the voters were waiting to teach Tony a lesson for having defected midway to the BJP from Congress.
Also going against Tony was the lack of visible development in the constituency even though he tried to persuade the voters that development works worth crores of rupees were in the pipeline.
The lack of unity among the BJP workers for allotting the ticket to Tony, despite the knowledge that the former MLA’s seat was unsafe, too contributed to the loss.
The role played by the church also went in Congress’s favour as the voters were indirectly told not to vote for the party which targeted the Christians.
