Second rung party leadership did the trick for Viriato
BJP MLA Ulhas Tuemkar outside the counting centre on June 4 to get his report card.
Photo Credits: Santosh Mirajkar
MARGAO
The BJP’s performance in the Navelim Assembly segment slightly improved for the better in the recently held Lok Sabha polls, but that did not stop the Congress flag from flying high in its stronghold once again after a setback in the 2022 Assembly election.
BJP MLA Ulhas Tuemkar, representing Navelim, must have proved a point or two after Party candidate Pallavi Dempo polled around 7,151 votes, around 2,000 votes more than what he had polled in the 2022 Assembly election, around 5,168 votes to be precise.
The BJP, however, were at sea to contain the Congress surge in Navelim in the Lok Sabha polls as Captain Viriato Fernandes ended his campaign by polling 12,921 votes in the Assembly segment, securing a crucial 5,770 vote lead over the BJP.
Bereft of any tall leaders in the Congress camp, the party campaign was virtually led by the second rung party leadership. Unlike the past when the Congress campaign was led by former Chief Minister Luizinho Faleiro and former Minister Avertano Furtado, one hardly came across any top leaders on the ground in support of the party campaign, leaving the responsibility of organizing the campaign to the local party leaders and the people at large.
The Navelim Assembly segment has been a stronghold of the Congress over the years before the party fort crumbled in the 2022 Assembly election due to a vertical split in the non-BJP vote due to the presence of multiple candidates in the fray.
In fact, when the BJP was hoping to stop the Congress from taking sizeable lead in Navelim, the people came out in large numbers to support Captain Viriato, giving a crucial lead to improve the Congress vote tally in Salcete.
