Parties gear up for bypoll in Goa

Curtains will come down for the October 31 Mormugao constituency (south Goa) Lok Sabha bypoll campaign on Monday.

Curtains will come down for the October 31 Mormugao constituency (south Goa) Lok Sabha bypoll campaign on Monday.

Congress and BJP are pitted against each other in this constituency, which covers more than half of Goa. The bypoll resulted after Congress MP, Churchill Alemao quit the post to join state politics.

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Congress candidate Fransisco Sardinha, BJP candidate Dr Wilfred Mesquita and two independents -- Jawahar Dias and Hamja Khan are in the fray for the contest.

In May, this year, Alemao had quit the post and the party, to form his own political outfit -- Save Goa Front (SGF), which fought a bitter June 2 Goa Assembly elections against Congress defeating two of its former Chief Ministers -- Fransico Sardinha and Luizinho Faleiro.

Alemao managed to win in Navelim constituency in South Goa and is currently a public works department minister in the Digamber Kamat government after his two coalition hoppings.

Mormugao constituency Lok Sabha bypoll may not be significant politically for neither the state government nor the central government, but it will surely be a testing ground for Congress and BJP to adjudge their popularity in this district.

In 2004, Alemao had defeated BJP Candidate Ramakant Angle. The constituency has always been considered as a Congress bastion with majority of votes polled by the national party from Catholic dominated Salcette taluka.