Team Herald

VALPOI: This is the fifth Assembly election for Vishwajit Rane and second by-election. He is taking the election very seriously which is evident from the number of platform he is using for campaigning.

This time, Vishwajit started his campaign two months ago on social media where he is getting a good response. 

He has also created WhatsApp groups for every panchayat in his constituency and his father’s constituency. There is a separate group for residents of Valpoi Municipal area. His WhatsApp groups are named as ‘Nagargao Panchayat youth with Baba’, ‘Savordem Panchayat Youth with Baba’, ‘Valpoi Youth with Baba’ etc. Every WhatsApp group has 255 members.

On these groups, Vishwajit posts his campaigns messages, photos, job vacancies, information about the works done by him and issues related to the society.  

Besides, he has also taken his campaign to Facebook, Twitter and Instagram where he is receiving good response.

As much as Vishwajit is active on the cyber world, his real world campaigns are also equally robust. He has been holding corner meetings since last two months wherein he has covered every village in his constituency. Besides, he is visiting the voters door-to-door and has held a number of public meetings.

In contrast, for Vishwajit’s challenger and Congress candidate Roy Naik, this is his first Assembly election. He is a new face in Valpoi electoral politics. Besides, he also started his election campaign only fifteen days ago. He has conducted door-to-door campaign in some villages and hasn’t covered much ground so far.

Roy is focusing his energy more on Usgao as that village was once under Ponda Assembly constituency being represented by his father Ravi Naik. Roy and Ravi enjoy some good will in Usgao panchayat which, with 11,000 votes, will play a decisive role in deciding the fate of the contestants.