Earlier this year, Advocate Rajeev Gomes spearheaded a civic society campaign and encouraged the public to attend council meetings which turned out to be a trend as the cries for new faces for the municipal elections were echoed since.
Besides Rajeev, the group United Goans Foundation (UGF) had also strongly called for the election of new faces but several of these candidates they backed failed to win from their respective wards. Rajeev even went to the extent of petitioning the state government to push for an amendment to hold ward meetings on the lines of gram sabhas and took on the case against the then chairperson Gonzaco Rebello. However, in the course of time, not only did Gomes receive criticism after his wife was spotted during the campaign trail of Arthur D’Silva who incidentally was re-elected, the failure of Margao populace to turn up in large numbers to vote was also a poor reflection of the ‘citizen’ movement.
Gomes appeared ecstatic after the results and reiterated that he was advocating bringing in new faces and for old councillors to be defeated and in that respect he had achieved considerable success. “Margao constituency has elected 3 out of 7 old faces – 4 rejected. Margao and Fatorda together have elected only 4 out of 11 old faces – 7 rejected. Out of 6 old faces supported by the Margao MLA, 4 old faces were rejected. Madganvkars have won their battle against old corrupt councillors. People have clearly voted for change,” said Gomes while thanking the public.
