The truncated elections would have also had the residents of the municipal councils of Margao, Mormugao, Mapusa, Quepem, Sanguem voting on the same day, had it not been for the fiasco of ward reservations that has led to the postponement of the elections as directed by the Supreme Court. This was set to be a truly representative election of urban Goa, but is now not so occurring.
The interesting aspect of this election, it coming close after the Bharatiya Janata Party comfortably wrested the two district panchayat bodies in December last year, is that the results will show whether the trend of rural Goa to vote for the ruling party is emulated by the residents of the urban areas. Though elections to five municipal councils will take place next month, these polls will gauge the popularity of the Bharatiya Janata Party throughout the State. With State Assembly elections due in February-March next year, these results will indicate, of course with some measure of error, the Goan mind when it comes to choosing its government.
There are in the March 20 elections some interesting contests on the cards. For instance the elections to the Corporation of the City of Panaji will see the local MLAs Atanasio (Babush) Monserrate and his spouse Jennifer with the backing of the Bharatiya Janata Party that they embraced in July 2019, taking on a citizens’ panel led by former mayor Surendra Furtado and that has the backing of the Congress and Aam Aadmi Party, whose nominees also are candidates in the panel. Interesting here is that this panel of We Ponjekars has candidates who are Bharatiya Janata Party sympathisers who have not taken kindly to the entry of the Monserrate couple into the party.
Another interesting fight will be the by-election to the Navelim Zilla Panchayat constituency. The result will not make any difference to the district panchayat body that has a Bharatiya Janata Party majority, but this is a seat that has been a Congress bastion and the opposition party has fielded its State Mahila president in an attempt to wrest it from Independent Edwin (Cipru) Cardozo who has won it twice. The entire Congress leadership has been campaigning for Coutinho, but she faces a fight from the Aam Aadmi Party candidate Mathilda Silva. AAP after their ZP victory in Benaulim, hopes to sweep the constituency, which Congress hopes to wrest. At this point it is difficult to predict the winner.
Another contest that is worth focusing on is a by-election of a ward of the Sakhalim Municipal Council, where Dashrath alias Krishna Ajgaonkar faces Rajendra Amshekar. It is not the candidates that make this contest interesting, it is the composition of the council that makes it so. The 13-member council is currently tied at six each and the winner will decide whether the BJP-backed panel or the Congress-backed panel takes charge of the council. The stakes are high in this town as this is Chief Minister Dr Pramod Sawant’s Assembly constituency, and allowing the Congress to wrest control of the town council would be a setback for him.
Had all the municipal councils voted together, this would have turned out to be a more interesting contest, as the stakes in towns like Mormugao and Margao, not to leave out Quepem are high. The local MLAs in all these places have already galvanised their workers for the polls and are only awaiting the dates. Goa is going to be in election mode for a few more weeks.
