NT Reporter Panaji
The St Cruz Zilla Panchayat seat emerged as a major talking point after the Revolutionary Goans Party (RGP) was blamed for walking out of the Grand Opposition Alliance (GOA) over the constituency. Despite the controversy, RGP won the seat by defeating the sitting Congress ZP member.
The GOA comprised the Congress and the Goa Forward Party (GFP). Congress and the GFP together fielded candidates in 45 seats and supported five Independent candidates, while the RGP fielded 30 candidates. The RGP won two seats—St Cruz and St Lawrence.
RGP candidate Esperanca Braganca, also known as Espy, won the St Cruz ZP seat by a margin of 779 votes. Braganca polled 4,533 votes, while Congress candidate Shiny Oliveira secured 3,754 votes. Trupti Bakal won from the St Lawrence seat.
RGP’s St Andre MLA Viresh Borkar said the RGP had created history. “It was said that RGP can’t win this seat. It is the victory of the truth. We have been working at the grassroot level because of which people have supported us,” said Borkar.
“It was said that the alliance was broken owing to this seat. The ‘money politics’, ‘dadagiri’ and ‘threats’ could not change the voters and they stood by us because of the work we have been doing,” he said.
Borkar said Chief Minister Pramod Sawant and senior BJP leaders addressed meetings for the BJP’s St Cruz candidate, while Congress leaders, including South Goa MP Viriato Fernandes, campaigned for the Congress candidate.
RGP president Manoj Parab said that if Congress wanted an alliance for the assembly elections, “it should take action against the president Amit Patkar, who destroyed the prospects of GOA”.
