Goa polls: Voters say no to Babus, send both deputy CMs packing

MARGAO: BJP suffered the ignominy of both its deputy chief ministers losing the elections. While Manogar

Ajgaonkar

lost to Congress candidate Digambar Kamat in Margao, Chandrakant

Kavlekar

was defeated by Congress candidate Altone D’Costa, a new face.

With his latest victory, Kamat will now be representing Margao for the eighth consecutive term in the state legislative assembly. He won by a mammoth margin of 7,794 votes, surpassing all his leads in previous elections.

Political observers say that among the many factors that led to Ajgaonkar’s defeat is his image as the messiah of Margao’s slums. Though Kamat too is known to have nurtured the Moti Dongor slums as his vote bank for the last several decades, BJP had, over the years, spared no opportunity to slam Kamat for his votebank politics, blaming him for turning Moti Dongor into a haven for criminals seeking shelter. By thrusting on the people a candidate who has a large fan following in the bastis of Margao, BJP alienated a considerable section of the middle class of the state’s commercial capital.

Secondly, by fielding Ajgaonkar, who belongs to the scheduled caste, BJP had departed from its time-tested practice of fielding a candidate from the influential Saraswat community. Sources said that even those Saraswats who had largely supported BJP in the past chose to be on the side of “aamcho Digambar”. “It is quite possible that even those Saraswat BJP karyakartas seen canvassing for Ajgaonkar during the campaign may have actually worked against him on the sly,” a political observer said.

Besides, the fact that the BJP nominated “a rejected BJP ticket aspirant” from Pernem as its Margao candidate was something the voters felt went against their sense of identity pride.

In Quepem, Kavlekar’s defeat signifies Congress’ success in retaining its citadel which BJP had attempted to breach following Kavlekar’s defection to the saffron party in July 2019. Kavlekar, who had so far won the Quepem seat for four terms on a trot on a Congress ticket, contested for the first time on a BJP ticket.

What contributed largely to Kavlekar’s defeat was the split among the BJP cadre in Quepem. Kavlekar’s defection from the Congress into BJP and his supporters’ dominion in party affairs of the constituency didn’t go down well with the original BJP workers of the constituency. Consequently, political observers said, poll figures indicate that even traditional BJP votes switched over to D’Costa, who enjoys camaraderie among both the Hindu and Catholic communities of Quepem.

Besides, the rivalry between Kavlekar’s spouse, Savitri, who contested as independent against BJP’s Subhash Phal Dessai had a spillover effect in Quepem, thereby adversely affecting Kavlekar’s fortunes.

Phal Dessai belongs to the Kshatriya Maratha community, which comprises a sizeable section of the electorate in Quepem constituency, particularly in areas of Balli, Adnem, and Fatorpa. Political observers said that this community sympathised with Phal Dessai, and in a determined bid to avenge the humiliation caused to him by Savitri, worked against her spouse in Quepem. Kavlekar thus suffered collateral damage.

Political observers said that the ST community, comprising nearly 40% of the total electorate in Quepem, also stayed loyal to Congress this time, leading to Kavlekar’s defeat.

The seemingly dejected Kavlekar couple refused to speak to the media over their defeat.


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