Fate of 19 sealed
Sanguem polls 84.74%, Sanvordem 82.27%
TEAM HERALD
PANJIM: Unprecedented voting percentages ~ highest so far for Parliamentary elections in the State ~ marked peaceful polling in Goa after a lacklustre election campaign as overall 76.82% voters came out and voted in the State’s two constituencies. Last time around ~ 2009 ~ the final figures were 55.36%, showing a clear jump of almost 25.5%.
Voting began at 7 am Saturday and there were many polling booths that could not complete the voting by the stipulated time of 6 pm.
North Goa polled higher, 78.60% out of a total of 5,15,247 voters, while South Goa polled 75.14% out of 5,44,706 voters.
Till around 1 pm around half the electorate and close to last elections total figures voted ~ 54.95% of the voters polled in north Goa while south Goa saw percentages of around 53.09%.
However, despite such heavy percentages, the polling was steady throughout the day across the State.
Prominent candidates in North Goa are the Congress Ravi Naik and the sitting BJP MP Shripad Naik.
In South Goa, BJP’s Narendra Sawaikar, who slugged it out with Congress’s Aleixo Reginaldo Lourenco fate is also sealed in the EVMs.
The two spoilers, TMC’s Churchill Alemao and Govind Gawde too would be eagerly waiting to see if their gambles succeeded or failed along with the candidate of the new team on the block, AAP Swati Kerkar.
CEO Keshav Chandra addressing media after the polling said the polling exercise was peaceful throughout the State ~ though 8 EVMs broke down and the percentages were the highest ever recorded. The previous one was 61%.
According to the Election Commission’s preliminary figures, in North Goa, Sanguem constituency polled the highest ~ 84.74%, while in south Goa, Sanvordem polled 82.27%.
The highest polling in a particular booth was recorded at Bali Kotambi at Sankhali ~ 94%, while in South Goa the booth at Kutti in Ponda polled 92.13%.
Chandra contributed the high percentages to “a combination of many factors, like awareness and efforts to connect with young voters.”
In this election, a total of 28,646 voters were added to the list while in 2012, around 26,000 were added.
According to the Election Commission, six machines were replaced after polling started (till 4) ~ 4 in south and 2 in north while after 4 pm two more EVMs broke down ~ one in Poriem and the other in Taleigao ~ and were subsequently replaced.
Joint Election Commissioner Narayan Navti, also present for the briefing, informed that the EVMs will be kept at Bal Bhavan (North) and Damodar College and Kare College (South), under security cover, for counting on May 16.
This time 19 candidates contested one more than in 2009 polls. There were 16 in fray in 2004.
In 2009, Congress’s Cosme Francisco Caitano Sardinha won from South Goa and BJP’s Shripad Yesso Naik won from North Goa. The BJP got 2,52,694 votes (44.78% of the votes cast), the INC got 1,27,494 votes (22.6%), the NCP got 1,31,363 votes (23.28%), and Others got 52,704 votes (9.3%).
During 2009 General election, the total number of voters in the State were 10,20,794 and the total votes polled were 5,64,255.
