All the altar boys of Manohar Parrikar appear to have paid a heavy price for their association with the Bharatiya Janata Party as all three of them have lost the elections. And though people in all three constituencies are relieved with the results, there is no visible sign of the merriment because of rumours that the BJP might still form the government in Goa as it is the ruling party at the Centre.
The trio lost out with the minorities because they were associated with the BJP and the majority community also did not vote for them as they were expecting to have a BJP candidate as can be seen in Velim where the BJP candidate secured 1765 votes even though there were 12 candidates in the fray.
In Benaulim, Caetano R Silva was relegated to the third position with even a rank new comer Royla Fernandes of the Aam Aadmi Party coming in second. This despite attempts by him to project GVP’s candidate Maria e Rebello to be BJP’s or more significantly Manohar Parrikar’s candidate.
People at the market places in Colva, Benaulim, Varca and Cavelossim said they were happy that Caitu has lost. However, not many of them were happy that Churchill Alemao is the new MLA and would have preferred some other MLA.
Youngsters at Varca said they would have preferred if the Congress candidate had won in Benaulim but were happy that the Congress had emerged as the single largest party and hoped it would form the next government.
However, when someone quipped that the BJP was likely to form the government the choicest expletives in Konkani were uttered.
In Velim people were very happy that Benjamin Silva was not elected and welcomed the victory of Filipe Neri Rodrigues with many of them opining that the results were a foregone conclusion.
At Cutbona jetty, even though Benjamin is the chairman of the Coutbona Fisheries Co-operative Society Limited, most of the trawler owners were happy that he lost. According to them, despite being close to the BJP, he did nothing for their community in the last five years.
Some of the trawler owners revealed that Benjamin used his position to promote only his business even to the detriment of others by getting trawlers beyond the permissible length approved by the government.
At the Velim and Assolna villages too people were unhappy with Benjamin and glad over the results. They said that they do not demonstrate their emotions for public consumption but assured that they were glad with the results.
At Sao Jose de Areal also people were happy that Benjamin had lost. “We had voted for Benjamin because Filipe had ignored us earlier and now because Benjamin repeated the mistake we have not voted for him,” said one trader from the village.
While Benjamin was alienated by the Catholics because of his association with the BJP, even the Hindus did not vote for him as they preferred to vote for the BJP candidate in the constituency who was supposed to be a mere prop.
At Navelim the joy was visible on the faces of the Catholics as they trooped out of the Church after the Sunday mass. Not only were they glad that the known associate of BJP Avertano Furtado had lost but glad that their previous representative Luizinho Faleiro was back in the saddle.
As for the Hindu community, it did not come out to vote in most places to register their protest against the BJP decision not to field a candidate in Navelim and support Avertano instead. “We wanted a BJP candidate in the constituency so that we could vote for the party. But since the party did not give us a candidate, we did not go out to vote,” said one Hindu family from Aquem Baixo.
In neighbouring Housing Board coming under the Rumdamoll panchayat, which is dominated by migrant Muslims, the happiness over Avertano’s defeat is evident.
