MMC elections: 12 nominations filed so far

MARGAO: Two of Leader of Opposition Digambar Kamat’s strong supporters filing their nominations from the same ward at the Margao Municipal Council elections on Saturday, the total nominations filed so far have risen to 12.
Significantly not a single nomination is received for 14 wards while the nominations filed are for 11 wards. Iftihar Shaikh and Mahesh Amonkar both staunch supporters of Digambar Kamat filed their nominations from ward No 15 which is a general ward that was earlier represented by Doris Sequeira. Digambar is supporting Manoj Massurkar, who was earlier representing Ward No 16.
Mahesh Amonkar, who is in fact related to Manoj pointed out that despite supporting Digambar for 25 years, Digambar did not support his candidature. “What was the need to import a candidate from another ward when there are capable persons in Ward No 15 itself,” he asked.
Iftihar lamented that Ward No 15 has been neglected for all these years and further pointed out that Doris did not even inform the women in the ward about various schemes available that would have made them self employed and empowered them.
He said empowering women and giving sporting facilities to youth will be his priorities while quipping “repairing gutters for which the PWD is there, is not the work of a councilor”.
The others who filed their nominations on Saturday are Gonzaga Rebelo from Ward No 1, Adv Seoula Vas, who is backed by Shadow Council for Margao from Ward No 3; Ronita Azgaonkar, who is former councillor Rajendra Azgaonkar’s wife from Ward No 14 that is reserved for Scheduled Caste women and Alinda Rodrigues from Ward No 20 that is reserved for women.
Five of the six nominations filed on April 1 were from general wards while Babita Naik was the only one to file her nomination from Ward No 25, which is reserved for women. Others, who filed their nominations on April 1 are Naique Sadanand Rama from Ward No 6, Amonkar Jaya Jaiprakash from Ward No 11, Sharmad Pai Raiturkar from Ward No 12, Rohan Naik from Ward No 18 and Paradkar Parvati Shankar from Ward No 24.