CANACONA
In a swift turn of events, a number of newly elected panchas changed camps and enabled Speaker and Canacona MLA Ramesh Tawadkar to take control of four of the six panchayats in Canacona constituency.
Incidentally, Tawadkar and arch rival and former MLA Isidore Fernandes lost no time in taking their elected panchas to meet Chief Minister Pramod Sawant in a show of political one-upmanship.
As results were declared on Friday evening, the panels floated by Tawadkar failed to take control of Shrishthal, Gaondongrim, Poinguinim and Loliem-Polem, but achieved success in Agonda and Khotigao.
Hectic talks were then underway to rope in a number of newly-elected panchas to support Tawadkar.
When his panels managed to secure majority in Shrishthal and Poinguinim, Tawadkar took the panels from the four panchayats as well as four panchas from Gaondongrim panchayat to meet Sawant and BJP State President Sadanand Tanawade in the capital city.
A short while later, Fernandes also took his winning panels from Loliem-Polem and Gaondongrim panchayats to meet Sawant and Tanavade.
According to sources in the Fernandes camp, Tawadkar poached two of the newly elected panchas of Poinguinim who had defeated Tawadkar's candidates.
“As the united opposition (backed by Fernandes), we had 6 of our members elected in Poiguinim, but two were lured away under the pretext of promoting development with BJP's blessings,” said a source.
“However, we are also close to the BJP government and our group can also bring in development works. We are now trying to get back at least one panch to our group and form the panchayat on August 22,” informed the source.
“We have four panchas in Poinguinim, three each in Khotigao and Agonda, and two in Shristhal. At least two of the panchayats where the Speaker paraded the winning panch members in majority are likely to face a revolt during the election of sarpanchas,” added the source.
Similarly in Agonda, Fernandes claims five of his candidates have won but two switched sides to support Tawadkar.
“Two of the Mahila Block Presidents Vinda Satarkar (BJP) and Ursula Da Costa (Congress) were defeated by my panel and we narrowly missed defeating a senior BJP (South) Vice-president Govind Naik in Poinguinim Panchayat,” said Fernandes.
At Khola, though four of the nine panchas elected are backed by Quepem MLA Altone D'Costa, seven of the eight panchas were taken by ex-Dy CM Chandrakant (Babu) Kavlekar to meet the chief minister.
