PONDA: BJP candidate Vishwajit Rane’s mammoth victory margin of over 10,000 votes over Congress candidate Roy Naik surprised one and all, including his own party.
Vishwajit managed to create a dent in Usgao, a Congress bastion of former chief minister Ravi Naik, by leading in the Usgao-Ganjem panchayat and by taking a 60.7 per cent vote share in his total of over 16,000 votes at the Valpoi by-election which was expected to be a neck-and-neck battle. On the other hand, Roy just managed to get 36 per cent vote share.
Some voters attributed Vishwajit’s victory to his strong campaigning with the BJP top leaders, including Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar and Union Minister Shripad Naik, and to a large extent due to lack of aggressive campaigning by Congress in the absence of its top leaders.
The Congress even failed to grab the opportunity and atmosphere prevailing at earlier stage to get large share of votes at even Usgao with no single public meeting except few corner meetings and focus on door-to-door campaign where there was strong resentment against Jr Rane over lack of development during past ten years.
However, some voters said that they were unhappy as there was no development in Usgao but now voted for the development of Usgao as Jr Rane was now in the government and had promised to take up development works in presence of BJP leaders at the public meetings.
