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NAVELIM: Independent candidate, Edwin alias Cipru Cardozo was elected for a record third time as Zilla Panchayat member from Navelim constituency. He defeated his nearest Congress rival by 372 votes.
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Pratima had conceded defeat after the first round of counting indicated that Cipru was leading by a margin of around 400 votes. She however held Congress leader Luizinho Faleiro responsible for her defeat.
“The results is a shame for senior Congress leader Luizinho Faleiro who despite having been the chief minister of the State could not get his candidate elected in his constituency,” said Pratima while accusing Luizinho of sabotaging her victory.
She further said, “Luizinho did not come to canvass with me in the constituency and on the day of polling he did not even visit the constituency nor did he bother to call me up to find out what is happening.” She claimed that whatever votes she got was because of her hard work.
Cipru polled 2,895 votes while the Congress candidate Pratima Coutinho got 2,523 votes and was closely followed by Matilda D’Silva of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) who polled 2,428 votes. However, Satyavijay Naik of the Bharatiya Janata Party polled only 994 votes.
“I am grateful to Congress Pradesh Committee President Girish Chodankar and MLA Aleixo Reginaldo Lourenco who came with me on the door to door campaign,” said Pratima, stating that if other Congress leaders had taken a little more interest maybe the results would have been different.
Recalling that she had contested the ZP elections only because the central leadership asked her to contest she expressed confidence that the party High Command will reward her sacrifices and said she would contest the assembly elections scheduled in 2022.
“I shall send a report to the party leadership about what happened at these elections,” said Pratima and claimed that she would stake a claim for the party ticket from Navelim constituency at the next assembly elections as she has now created sufficient contacts in the constituency.
Pratima said polling 2,500 votes with only 14 days of campaigning was an achievement and said that AAP candidate Matilda took away Congress votes. “If there was no AAP candidate I would have won by over 5,000 votes,” she said.
She also said the understanding between Churchill Alemao and Luizinho Faleiro was exposed at the ZP elections. “The Kumpars were together in it all along,” she said referring to the fact that Luizinho is godfather of Churchill’s son.
Cipru claimed that it was his hard work and personal touch with the people helped him win the elections. “People have seen my work for the last 10 years and appreciating it they voted for me,” he said while also pointing out that while the voters knew him, the opponents were all new faces.
