PANAJI
With counting of votes cast in the civic election slated to be held on Monday morning, political pundits will focus attention on the outcomes of the thirty wards of the Corporation of the City of Panaji (CCP) where the dominance of Panaji MLA Atanasio Monserrate will be put to the test with his newly acquired saffron avtaar.
Monserrate, whose panel has gone unscathed in three consecutive CCP polls since 2006, is for the first time on the saffron side of the aisle in the capital city’s civic politics.
Soon after over 70 per-cent of the electorate cast votes when polling ended on Saturday, he claimed his panel will make a “clean sweep” winning all 30 wards but many dismiss it as bravado.
For, through the campaign several of the candidates from his panel have faced the backlash from a section of the electorate in reaction to his switch to the saffron camp in 2019 within months of winning the Panaji bye-election held post the death of Manohar Parrikar.
The Monserrate-led panel also faces another adversity from the ‘original’ BJP camp which is resisting his muscled take over of the party apparatus nursed over nearly three decades by Parrikar.
At least half a dozen recognizable functionaries of the ruling party have rebelled and are candidates of the rival ‘Ami Ponnjekar’ panel led by ex-Mayor Surendra Furtado. In some other wards, a section of the cadre has also reportedly sided with the challenger.
Yet another negative sentiment is the anti-incumbency built over the 13 of the 15 years the panel owing allegiance to Monserrate has controlled affairs of the capital's civic body.
Barring the two years that the late Parrikar took control soon after the latter spectacularly won the 2012 Goa assembly election, Monserrate has ruled the CCP since 2006 and "what has been done?" echoed across the 30 wards through the campaign.
To his advantage, however, was Monserrate's resourceful electioneering machine.
Allegedly using an electorally potent cocktail of tactics like distribution of goodies and intimidation of local level satraps and influencers, his campaign involves management at the micro level right up to the household level.
The polls may not have officially been fought on political party lines but the convention of floating panels has inevitably lent the battle for CCP a distinct political hue and could form the basis of Monserrate's future politics.
The political test however is in the outcome of Monday's counting process in all of the 30 wards encompassing the Panaji and Taleigao assembly segments currently represented by the Monserrate couple.
