AAP Goa Convener Rahul Mahambre hailed the people of Benaulim for opting for clean and honest politics and added that AAP’s vote share has doubled from what it has got at the 2017 assembly elections.
He said the party had raised people’s issues like water and power bills and people have responded to the party positively by increasing the vote share of the party all across the State.
Hanzel Fernandes who is a mechanical engineer but practising carpenter thanked AAP for fielding him as a candidate and thanked the people of Benaulim for electing him even though there were heavy weight candidates pitted against him.
He took a solemn oath on the Constitution to work for the expansion of party and assured to take up the works of the people of Benaulim .
However later replying to a question he said if any project is for the betterment of Goa and Goans he would support it while asserting to oppose all things that are detrimental to Goa or Goans. He listed the need for a health centre in his constituency as the main priority followed by taking up issues of the farmers.
“My constituency has lot of farmers but they do not get the government schemes for farmers and I shall take those schemes to the people,” he said.
AAP Benaulim co-ordinator Venzy Viegas said Benaulim has shown the way for rest of Goa to follow and said Benaulim has a lot of issues particularly faced by those involved in traditional occupations like toddy tapping, carpentry, fishing industry and others.
“Within a year Goa will see how AAP functions differently as Hanzel will raise these issues and find out some solutions to them,” he said while Hanzel said he will approach the chief minister if necessary to get the problems of his voters resolved.
AAP spokesperson Adv Surel Tilve pointed out that just as the Konkan was created with an arrow that struck Benaulim, AAP’s electoral prospects have begun from the same village and is ensured to engulf the whole state.
Adv Prasad Shahapurkar who was AAP candidate in Morjim constituency pointed out that in some booths AAP got more votes than the BJP and added that some families who had decided to boycott the Zilla polls voted only because AAP had fielded a candidate in the constituency. He also spoke about a family who has been traditionally voting for BJP & MGP but now voted for AAP. The family told him that AAP is a true Nationalist party which works for the betterment of the country and hence they have decided to caste their vote to AAP.