Team Herald
Panjim: BJP, which captured both the Zilla Panchayats (ZPs) by trouncing the Congress and other opposition, despite a claim of simmering, anti-saffron wave, saw a jump of over 10% in its vote share compared to the last elections held for second tier panchayati raj body in 2015. What is more significant is that the BJP-led government’s popularity rose by 7% with increased voter- count, than what it had obtained in the 2017 State Assembly election.
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On the other hand, the Congress polled almost 10% votes less than what it got in the 2017 State Assembly elections, when it had got elected across 17 Assembly constituencies.
Though, the ZP 2015 was fought on party lines, Congress did not field any candidate on the party symbol.
The BJP bagged 39.79% of the total votes, securing 1,75,609 votes winning 33 seats, against the 28.17% votes it had polled in 2015 when it won only 18 seats by polling 1,46,092 votes in its favour. The party had contested on 41 seats, of which it got elected unopposed at one.
The BJP’s vote share in North Goa was over 45.69%, while in South it was 32.58%.
The constituencies that saw the highest vote share include Querim (66%) in North Goa and Ponginium (65%) in South.
BJP’s dominance was evident in North as well as in South with winning voter share ranging from 65% to 40% of the total votes polled in the constituency, it contested.
The ZPs are restricted to only the rural population of Goa. Despite this, BJP’s vote count, compared to 2017 State Assembly elections (32.5%) saw a jump of almost 7%. However, as compared to the Lok Sabha election 2019, the vote share is down by nearly 18%.
After BJP, the Independent, 78, polled the maximum of 24.14% of the total votes, winning seven seats. The Independents got a total of 1,06,780 votes. In 2015, their vote share was around 50%, as they had managed to win 25 out of 50 ZP seats.
The Congress won four seats of the total 37 it contested after polling hardly 85,444 votes, which is 19.32% of total votes cast this time.
In Morjim constituency, the party struggled to get even 3% of the votes; while in constituencies where it won, the vote share was between 40% and 55%.
The State’s oldest regional political front- MGP, also managed to increase its vote share by close to 2%. This election, the party got a total of 46,333 votes, which is nearly 10.47% of the total votes, winning three seats. In 2015, MGP, which fought in alliance with BJP, had got 7.8% of total votes.
AAP that opened its account with victory in Benaulim, got a total of 4.96% votes (21,972). The party had contested on 20 seats, altogether. Further, NCP, winning one seat, got 1.36% votes across the six constituencies, it had fielded its candidates in.
