MAPUSA
If there was one candidate who benefited from the presence of the Revolutionary Goans Party (RGP), it has to be BJP’s Nilkanth Halarnkar in Tivim.
RGP chief Tukaram Manoj Parab polled 5,000 odd votes virtually sealing the faith of TMC’s Kavita Kandolkar who was a front runner till Thursday morning before the counting started.
Zilla Panchayat member Kavita Kandolkar ran a decisive campaign and was expected to upset the applecart of BJP’s Nilkant Halarnkar in the constituency but RGP’s Tukaram Parab had other ideas.
By winning the Tivim seat, Halarnkar also managed to alter a significant statistic in the constituency which is known not to elect the same face on a trot.
In 2017 assembly polls, Nilkanth Halarnkar was elected on Congress ticket but later defected along with the 10 Congress MLAs to embrace the BJP.
In the run-up to the election campaign, Halarnkar faced a hostile electorate who virtually questioned his performance.
The BJP candidate polled 9,414 votes while the TMC candidate got 7,363 votes with Halarnkar winning with a comfortable margin of 2,051 votes.
The Congress candidate Aman Lotlikar was relegated to the fourth position with 1,230 votes and AAP was placed fifth with mere 421 votes.
