Team Herald
SANGUEM: Barring a stray incident of verbal clash between supporters of two candidates in ward 3, the elections to all the ten wards of Sanguem Municipal Council (SMC) went peaceful by all means. Despite increasing COVID cases in the State, the elections to SMC recorded a voting percentage of 81.49. Incidentally ward 10 recorded the highest voting percentage of 89.97 % while ward 6 tailing with 77.29 per cent
Out of 5343 eligible voters in Sanguem municipal area, 4354 voters exercised their voting rights of which 2033 were males and 2321 were females.
In SMC polls 43 candidates are in fray of which 20 are women and 23 men. Three former chairpersons Queiroz Cruz, Romualdo Fernandes and Sanjay Krishna Raikar are in fray beside other former councillors Fauziya Shaikh, Sandesh Kossambe and Maria Fernandes. Most of the contesting candidates for Sanguem Municipal Council are young and new faces.
Interestingly elections to SMC have seen a huge number of women candidates as the post of chairperson to SMC is reserved for women.
For the first time in last eight terms to the Sanguem Municipal Council, former chairperson Sanjay Krishna Raikar is facing a tough competition former councillor of SMC Fouziya Shaikh in ward 3 and which has majority voters from Muslim community.
The elections saw a huge but manageable crowd in the early morning hours. A fair share of voters had to go for work so they preferred to cast their vote 8.00 to 9.00 am. The voting booth in the town area also witnessed swelling crowd for most of the time as it is the lone booth that facilitated voters from ward 3, 5 and 6.
Special arrangements were in place for COVID positive patients to vote in their respective wards. Total 21 COVID positive voters had cast their votes in the different wards of Sanguem Municipal Council.
Returning Officer for Sanguem Municipal Council Sagar Gaude alongwith the Assistant Returning Officer and Mamlatdar of Sanguem Manoj Korgaonkar confirmed that the elections across all the ten wards of SMC went off peacefully. PI Sachin Panelkar alongwith his team was seen making frequent visits to all the polling booths to avoid any unwanted incident from taking place.
