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‘Let us shape glorious Goa,” tweets Goa CM as BJP sweeps zilla panchayat polls
The BJP won 32 of the 48 seats that went to the polls winning both the district panchayats comfortably.
The BJP has swept the elections in two zilla parishad constituencies in Goa, winning a simple majority in each of the two district panchayats and leaving the principal opposition party the Congress behind. The Congress is still feeling the effects of losing more than two-thirds of its MLAs to the BJP just a little more than a year ago.
The BJP has won 32 of the 48 seats that went to the polls winning both the district panchayats comfortably while independent candidates won seven seats, the Congress four, the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party three, and the Nationalist Congress Party won one. One BJP candidate was elected unopposed.
The Aam Aadmi Party opened its account in the state for the first time winning a single seat.
The party has claimed that the victory is a vindication of the leadership of Pramod Sawant as the chief minister who has faced criticism both from within his party as well as from the opposition for the handling of the lockdown, the pandemic as well as for his pushing through a controversial railway double-tracking project.
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“I humbly bow down before the people of Goa for the trust they have reposed onto the Bharatiya Janata Party as well as the Govt of Goa working under my leadership. Let us shape a glorious and Swayampurna (Self Reliant) Goa by taking ahead the same trust and confidence!” Sawant tweeted soon after the party emerged victorious.
“The rural areas in Goa have supported the BJP. Social media agitations, Tamnar project, double tracking, coal IIT... all NGOs, political parties started these agitations and tried to defame the government on social media. This result is a slap on their faces and a certificate for the good work done by the BJP,” state president Sadanand Shet Tanavade, said.
As the results began to trickle in, the BJP went ahead in early trends and never looked back. The party, however, in a crucial match, lost seats to the opposition candidates in areas where the MLAs have defected from the Congress to the BJP.
The result is a significant improvement on the party’s 2015 tally wherein it had won 18 seats while the independents grabbed a lion’s share, winning 15 seats. The Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party had not participated in the 2015 zilla panchayat polls, instead fielded its candidates as independents.
The result has also indicated that the BJP has managed to, for now, win back the support of the politically significant Bahujan Samaj in Goa which had deserted the party in the 2017 assembly elections resulting in the BJP being reduced to a paltry share of 13 seats in the 40-member Goa Legislative Assembly.
The elections which were to be held in March this year were postponed on account of the Covid-19 lockdown and were finally held on December 12 but suffered from a poor voter turnout on account of fear of the pandemic as well as disillusionment among voters.
The state witnessed a voter turnout of 56.82 per cent with 4.50 lakh of the 7.92 lakh voters eligible for voting having cast their vote, which was more than 10 per cent lower than the voting percentage at the previous zilla panchayat elections held five years ago.
The BJP fielded 43 candidates on 48 seats, the Congress fielded 38, while the Aam Aadmi Party and the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party had 17 candidates each in the fray. Seventy-nine people contested as independent candidates.
The ruling BJP has a commanding majority among the MLAs, who often sponsor their own candidates for the district panchayat polls with 27 of the 40 MLAs owing allegiance to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party after 12 of the 17 Congress MLAs elected on party tickets back in 2017 having moved to the BJP.
The party has however lost crucial seats where candidates sponsored by its MLAs have been defeated by independent candidates or by opposition Congress MLAs including in Santa Cruz, Nuvem and Colvale constituencies where the Congress or the independents have managed to win the seat despite having lost their MLAs to the BJP.
With the zilla panchayat bodies performing only a nominal role, the polls are seen more as a preliminary test for political parties ahead of the state assembly elections a little more than a year away in early 2022.
