MARGAO
Why there’s much ado in political circles if the Congress lays claim on the Fatorda seat or if sitting MLA Vijai Sardesai calls for seat adjustment or alliance with the Congress to leave the Fatorda seat for the Goa Forward party?
The voting pattern in the 2007 and 2012 Assembly elections bares it all. Consider this. In 2007, BJP’s Damu Naik stopped Vijai Sardesai's bid to enter the Legislative Assembly, riding on a vertical split in the secular and non-BJP votes. And, exactly the opposite happened five years later in 2012 when Vijai Sardesai stopped Damu Naik's hat-trick and made it to the Assembly riding on a consolidation of the non-BJP vote in his favour. The two scenarios – the splits and consolidation of the non-BJP vote share -- answers all questions and sums up the debate on Fatorda – that BJP’s Lotus can bloom in Fatorda only over a vertical split in the secular and non-BJP votes.
That brings another moot question as to why sitting MLA Vijai Sardesai is insisting that the Congress leave the Fatorda seat to him via an alliance of seat adjustment when he had won the 2012 election despite the Congress in the fray?
The answer is simple. In 2012, Vijai apparently rode on a sympathy wave when he was denied the Congress ticket at the eleventh hour, coupled by the fact that Congress nominee M K Sheikh was never considered a serious candidate. Vijai’s independent candidature also helped him to tap a sizeable majority votes, which in the previous election had rallied behind the BJP.
A glance at the 2007 election result statistics would reveal that the presence of Independent candidate Piedade Noronha in the fray played spoilsport to Vijai’s electoral prospects. Hailing from the dominant Schedule Tribes community, Piedade went on to poll around 3,640 votes to be precise secular and non-BJP votes, and in the process taking 18.37 per cent vote share, a percentage enough to divide the secular and non-BJP votes to send Vijai packing home.
It is not out of place to mention here that the BJP’s Lotus had first bloomed in Fatorda in 2002 due to a split in the secular votes. Then three-time Congress MLA Luis Alex Cardozo’s winning run was cut short by BJP’s Damu Naik, benefitting from the split in the non-BJP votes after former Sports Minister Monte Cruz polled close to 4,000 votes, around 3,992 vote to be precise.
A similar situation prevailed in the 2012 election. But, a consolidation of the secular and non-BJP votes saved the day for Vijai Sardesai, leaving Damu Naik stranded midway, giving the Independent MLA a comfortable victory against the BJP.
A close look at the 2012 Assembly results would reveal that Vijai Sardesai had managed to win over the traditional Congress votes on a sympathy wave after the Congress leadership denied him the ticket at the eleventh hour. He also succeeded in taping a section of the traditional majority BJP votes, which apparently voted for him given his independent status. It’s against this backdrop that Vijai, sources say, apparently went about in the formation of his own entity, culminating in the birth of the Goa Forward Party – a move aimed at pocketing the Congress vote-share as well as the traditional BJP votes looking for an alternate option other than the Congress.
Vijai Sardesai 10375
Damu Naik 8436
Arthur D’Silva 1126
Piedade Norohna 695
M K Sheikh 660
Ashok Korgaonkar 57
Jawahar Dias 47
Anwar Sayed 45
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Candidates Votes
Damu Naik 7943
Vijai Sardesai 6172
Piedade Norohna 3640
Ibrahim 804
Hazare Mahadev 793
Camilo Baretto 463
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