Team Herald
PANJIM: The ruling BJP has been reduced from 21 to 13 seats in the Assembly and the main reason for the defeat is how the North Goa district voted. In 2012, the North had given BJP 12 of their 21 seats, however, that number has come down to just 8 this time. The Congress which got five seats in this district in 2012 has increased its tally to seven, while debutant Goa Forward has opened its account with two in North Goa, sending two BJP ministers home.
The big loss for the BJP came in the defeat of Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar who lost by a margin of over 4000 votes to Congress nominee Dayanand Sopte. Also, Panchayat Minister Rajendra Arlekar who was also considered for the post of chief minister after former chief minister Manohar Parrikar was moved to Delhi in 2014, lost to MGP’s Manohar (Babu) Azgaonkar in Pernem, which is neighbouring the CM’s constituency of Mandrem.
In Bardez, where BJP held sway in six out of seven constituencies in 2012, their number has been reduced to half the number with the other seats going to Congress and Goa Forward and an Independent.
Interestingly, Bardez had three ministers – Tourism Minister Dilip Parulekar, who lost to Jayesh Salgaonkar, WRD Minister Dayanand Mandrekar who lost to Vinod Palyekar and Deputy CM Francis D’Souza who won by a margin of over 6000 votes.
Speaking to Herald D’Souza said, “I cannot speak for each candidate but the party will try to assess what went wrong.” As for retaining Mapusa, he said, “It all depends on what relation you have with the people and I have tried my best to retain my relations with them.”
The district has also seen Porvorim MLA Rohan Khaunte being re-elected for the second time as an independent candidate – a feat no independent has achieved before in the State.
Ramakant Kerkar, a supporter of Goa Forward, said the BJP lost in North Goa due to the arrogance of its ministers and the MoI issue. “The ministers felt they were above the law and U-turn on MoI issue backfired,” he said.
