The traditional tribal voters and the differences between BJP leaders and the outgoing MLA saw the emergence of a giant killer in Sanguem. Prasad Gaonkar, who contested as an Independent, defeated BJP’s Subhash Fal Dessai by a margin of 937 votes.
The victory run of Prasad, who polled 7636 votes, would have cut short had the outgoing MLA Fal Dessai sorted out the differences which had cropped up between him and some core BJP leaders, who incidentally were instrumental in getting him elected from Sanguem in the 2012 Assembly elections.
The war had commenced in December last when the estranged party leaders wary with Fal Dessai’s style of working had a meeting of about 30 supporters at Bondla with the party leader Narendra Savaikar. At the meeting the warring group demanded that the differences be sorted out or the party ticket be allocated to some other candidate.
The issue was later taken up by the Party President Vinay Tendulkar with the Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar in tow wherein both the warring party members were called for discussion. But with members of either party not willing to come to terms, the issue remained unsolved and this ultimately cost the party the Sanguem seat.
Some of the estranged members had helped BJP come to power in Sanguem in 1999 with little known Prabhakar Gaonkar being elected as first BJP MLA in Sanguem. Since then the party had never tasted defeat. However, it is solely due to this estranged group, coupled with the silent voting of BBSM and RSS voters that Prasad Gaonkar got elected with a margin of 937 votes.
In the 2012 elections, Prasad Gaonkar had polled 5737 votes which mostly comprised of tribal community. This election Gaonkar managed to obtain maximum votes from the tribal community of his clan with additional votes coming from the BBSM and RSS voters and the silent BJP voters who were fed up with the style of functioning of the Fal Dessai. Though BBSM had its own candidate (Ex-MLA Vassudev Meng Gaonkar nothing worked for him since the rivals’ sole purpose was to defeat Fal Dessai.
The booth wise voting pattern clearly showed that Prasad Gaonkar garnered maximum votes at Molcornem, his birth place and those inhabited by the tribal community in Rivona, Wadem, Neturlim and Salgini. As was expected the Congress candidate Mrs Savitri Kavlekar secured majority votes in Sanguem town area and Uguem village which are traditionally Congress bastion.
Sanguem people are happy over Prasad’s being elected and also ecstatic that he may have a say in the formation of the Government and possibly a ministerial berth provided Gaonkar plays the right card at the right time.
