TEAM HERALD
PANJIM: The uncertainty over candidates in the fight for the coveted Panjim seat has cleared with the announcement of Surendra Furtado as the Congress candidate. The announcement came after that of St Cruz MLA Atanasio (Babush) Monserrate stating that he will not contest as an independent, setting up a straight fight between the Congress and the BJP.
Furtado, who is the Panjim Mayor, faces an uphill task in the poll as, besides his strongholds in Miramar and certain pockets in St Tome area, he will have to work extremely hard to cover all the wards, besides rebuilding the infrastructure of the Congress in the State capital.
Furtado will have to match the strong BJP organisation in the constituency that was set up by Union Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar. The BJP, at any time, can call on at least 700 workers in the constituency, something that the Congress did not have even at the peak of its popularity.
However, given that the Congress Lok Sabha candidate polled some 4,500 odd votes without much canvassing earlier this year, it can be inferred that Congress has a minimum of 3,000 votes in the constituency. However, last time the BJP won by a margin of 6,000 votes, which signified that Parrikar had managed to get voters, including the Catholic voters, especially in areas like Miramar and Altinho out to vote. Whether they will vote in the coming by-election is a question mark.
According to rough figures, the constituency has around 14,000 voters of the majority community and around 6,000 and 1,500 voters from the minority communities.
For the Congress to put up a fight, its candidate will have to break the stronghold of the BJP in Mala and get the voters out in Altinho and Panjim proper. The party managed to do it only once in the past five terms (when Ramesh Silimkhan was the Congress candidate) and the second time to a limited extent when Dinar Tarcar contested on a Congress ticket.
Parrikar has taken this by-election, a result of him quitting the assembly, as a personal challenge and has even started a door-to-door campaign.
How the Congress candidate and its leadership manage this campaign will decide how close the fight is going to be.
