PANJIM: It was a nail biting finish for Chief Minister Dr Pramod Sawant. He managed to retain his Sanquelim seat in the 2022 Legislative Assembly polls, albeit by a much lesser margin.
With nervousness visible on his face, CM arrived at the counting centre at around 8.15 am. He refused to give any comment to the media and walked straight inside the counting centre. He remained in the counting hall on the first floor of Government Polytechnic College, Altinho while his security personnel were stationed out.
T
he final counting did give him a major sigh of relief but it wasn’t an easy victory for the three-time MLA.
Congress’ Dharmesh Saglani gave him a tough fight as he led by as many as 700 votes till the third round of counting. It was almost assumed that Saglani would sweep the polls, defeating the CM but the game changed thereafter.
Once the counting of the municipal areas of Sanquelim – which is where Saglani holds strong position – was over, CM began to lead thereafter. Dr Sawant snatched Saglani’s victory as the rural pockets of Sanquelim voted in his favour.
However, the reduced margin by which CM won could have been embarrassing for the CM. “I have won with a small margin, which I did not expect. I will be analysing the result shortly but before that government formation is the priority,” he told the media outside the counting centre.
In 2017 elections, Dr Sawant polled 10058 votes while Saglani got 7927 votes, a difference by 2131 votes. In 2022, though the vote share increased to 47.73 percent the victory is not as expected. The difference between CM’s vote count of 12,250 with that of Saglani’s 11,584 votes was 666 votes.
