Kamat’s move may affect election of MMC chief

MARGAO: There has been a major twist in the tale when it comes to the elections for the post of Chairperson of the Margao Municipal Council (MMC) and there appear to be more twists in store.

The Margao Civic Alliance (MCA) was set to elect a councillor from the Model Margao (MM) group that is backed by then Congress Margao MLA Digambar Kamat.

However, with his entry into BJP, there could be a fight between the original BJP group of councillors and the councillors supported by the new BJP Margao MLA.

Earlier, the MCA consisted of 15 councillors, seven from MM and eight from Goa Forward Party (GFP), who are backed by Fatorda MLA Vijai Sardesai.

As per the seat sharing agreement between these two groups, former Chairperson and GFP Councillor Lyndon Pereira had stepped down after completing his tenure of 15 months and GFP President Sardesai had given assurance that his group would back whichever candidate Kamat’s group chose.

While the Model Margao group of councillors finally agreed to field Damu Shirodkar as their candidate, the opposition group of BJP councillors decided to back independent councillor Ghanshyam Shirodker, a former aide of Kamat.

Incidentally, BJP senior councillors Sadanand ‘Paklo’ Naik recently said their group wouldn’t support the Kamat group even if he joined BJP.

Furthermore, councillor Mahesh Amonkar, a bitter critic of Kamat, who recently joined the BJP also backed Ghanshyam’s nomination.

Meanwhile Damu, who was expected to file his nomination on Thursday, was present at a meeting with Sardesai along with Kamat and others on Tuesday night. A GFP councillor Raju Naik asked Kamat what would happen if he joined BJP and Kamat rejected this as media speculation.

On Wednesday, given that Kamat joined BJP, Sardesai said even though MCA was formed to keep BJP out, he will stick to his assurance and not field a GFP candidate. He added that he has told his councillors to vote as per their conscience and added that the fight is now between the old BJP councillors and the new ‘duplicate’ BJP group in the council.