He won by over 800 votes being Kingmaker and drawing vengeance for the Fatorda MLA Vijai Sardessai who lost an MLA election in 2007 because of Piedade breaking votes.
But Joseph Silva, who won with Vijai’s support, soon had a political fallout with Vijai post the 2012 Assembly polls and the municipal ward has continuously suffered. “We united all Catholics, Muslims and Hindus and brought this guy to power. We all were with him because of Vijai Sardessai but he ditched us all and has disappeared. Joseph has not visited the ward for the last three years. He doesn’t even attend Municipal Council meetings, so where’s the question of him raising our issues,” asks Rosario Barreto from Fatorda.
Similar to Barreto, all residents in the ward have a huge problem with the garbage collection drive and the fact that the municipal workers have stopped coming door-to-door to collect garbage.
People in Chandrawaddo complain how they have erratic electricity supply and the streets are in darkness because the streetlights are not working. But the councillor never takes their calls or visits them. “We regret electing Joseph in the name of bringing a young face to the municipality to represent us. Roamed the ward for him and got him elected only to realize this guy would ditch us. The ward in Chandrawaddo is so neglected and even worse is Gouliwaddo where sewage, no proper drains, bad roads and no streetlights is a massive problem. It’s unfair that we have to call our MLA or visit his office all the time to settle these issues when we have a councillor,” explained senior citizen and former school headmaster Baban Mendonca.
Ward three is a mix of different kinds of people and their woes vary. Chandrawaddo faces a huge problem of scrap yards and bad roads and most importantly, garbage disposal while Ambaji lacks open spaces and has bad interior roads while Dongorwado, Gouliwaddo and Copelwado are backward areas dominated by ST/SC and OBC who have issues related to encroachments, sewage disposal and no proper storm water drains.
Locals are even more upset because the local councillor has ventured into a wholesale liquor business and travels all the time on business and is unavailable to anybody in the area. Even presently the councillor is travelling outside the country.
