But in Xaxtti, people like to take the news slowly and don’t really like the whole breaking news and social media buzz. When Joeh Coelho was sipping his evening tea with some English Marie biscuits and Herald reporters stopped by his home to ask him if he’s elated that elections are round the corner, he responded, “At my age of 60 years, I have seen so many polls, and voted so many times, hoping that each time I would vote out one kind of corrupt but sadly the MLAs that replaced them were even worse, I really am not excited to vote another government though this polls has a whole set of new faces and lesser family raj politics,” asserted Joeh.
But Xaxtti similarly likes to soak in election news by reading it on the papers. When a group of four senior citizens were discussing what all has happened today in Sernabatim enroute Maria Hall, one them loudly proclaimed she read about elections online when she went to check her son’s profile photo on Facebook. But the rest of the three women said, “how can you trust social media, let the newspaper bring the news tomorrow and see we’ll see if it’s true.” Similarly many fruit vendors busy with the tourist season in Benaulim were not even aware of the whole election schedule and were shocked when the gossip in the market began that elections were announced.
“From what I hear people discuss at the tinto and at my tea stall here in Benaulim, I believe that the EC has banned use of plastic banners and posters and I hope that’s true, the number of vinyl banners in our fields and nullahs from politicians and political parties is really annoying,” stated Ashok Dessai who runs a small fruit cart and chai shop in Benaulim.
“In Carmona I have mobilised the people and even requested the parish priest to make one announcement on Sunday. Based on that, we will compile a Charter of Demands for Carmona village and we will then grill each candidate as to how he will meet our demands and accordingly we’ll create a candidate report card to guide our Carmona citizens on who to vote. Only one problem, we need political parties especially the Congress to be a little quicker on deciding their candidates, so we can carry out this entire exercise,” exclaimed activist Allwyn George.
While candidates themselves want a copy of the do’s and don’ts of this election an independent candidate aspiring to contest from Benaulim wanted clarity on what happens to the hoardings and banners put up by her and her supporters and whether they should be pulled down or whether the Election Commission will do it on her behalf. Terence Fernandes, meanwhile, is elated that elections came after the New Year celebrations and that the elections didn’t jeopardise the Christmas or New Year’s festivities in any manner though there are apprehensions that the tourist season will take a hit.
