Corrupt or Communal. It’s a battle of tags on poll eve
PANJIM: Close to call. If this is the status of the predictometer on the eve of the CCP elections, a partial victory has already been reserved for Manohar Parrikars Panaji First and his silent supporters the Panjimites Initiative for Change.
This has been a hard battle. As the stage is set for that one last and most important call that the people of Panjim will take, getting that sweet sixteen, the magic majority figure, will be hard fought.
In the two corners-Panaji First (PF) of opposition leader Manohar Parrikar and Panaji City Corporation Development Front (PCCDF) of the Taleigao MLA.
Babush Monseratte, though a front runner, faces these elections with certain distinct disadvantages. He is not new anymore. If the glitter of Taleigao rubbed off on the Panjim voters, the same glitter hasn’t rubbed off on Panjim.
The fact that the panchayat of Taleigao is showcased as an area of development while Panjim deteriorates has also struck many Panjim loving middle class voters.
What the CCP lacked was corporators with vision who could think beyond their wards. The city fathers, opposition included , remained glued to their respective wards. Corporators such as Milind Shirodkar, Uday Madkaikar ( later thrown out of Babush camp) , Bento Lorena, Nagesh Karishetty and Daya Karapurkar were accused of wrong doings in the CCP. Karishetty was named main accused in the pay parking scam. Criminal cases were filed against Karapurkar and Madkaikar.
Babush, worried about this backlash, did a course correction by removing controversial corporators
However, inspite of all this election will be no cake walk for Parrikar who is frantically trying to regain his hold on the city through the CCP election. There is just one thing stopping him. The last word is not yet out on what Panjimites rate as the bigger evil-communalism or corruption.
Monday morning will answer that question.
Counting on Monday
In view of the law and order concerns expressed by the Goa Police, the State Election Commission (SEC) has postponed the counting of votes for the Corporation of the City of Panaji (CCP) elections to Monday, March 14.
The SEC today declared that it has deferred the counting to March 14 morning, fearing a law and order problem.
Earlier, it had declined the request of the police to postpone counting of votes to next day.
It was, however, not known why police were so late in approaching the SEC as it had declared it’s programme a month earlier.
The election for 30 wards of CCP will be held through electronic voting machines (EVMs) and results are expected to be out within half an hour of the counting on Monday.
