Goemkarponn desk
PANAJI: Priol BJP candidate Govind Gaude filled his nomination on the very first day of the nomination of assembly election 2022, being the auspicious day of Ganesh Sankshtee.
Immediately, his supporters made his nomination papers viral, claiming that Govind has now become “Local of Priol” hence be “vocal for local”.
Their claim was based on the postal address stated by their leader, which was of Veling in Priol Constituency and not of actual Dhonashi Bandora in the Marcaim constituency.
By late evening, it also became viral that the voting of Govind Gaude and his wife had been transferred to the house of one old lady named Kishori Keshav Gaude at Gauthanvada of Veling village as two sons of this lady, namely Dayesh Kehav Kerkar and Laxmikant Keshav Kerkar are personal staff cum Karyakartaa of Govind Gaude.
On paper, legal formalities have been done to show that Minister Govind Gaude and his wife have been staying with them since October 2021.
Though morally wrong, there is nothing illegal in transfers as late Manohar Parrikar had given such address near Pharmacy College in Panjim to get his vote transfer to Panjim.
The talk of the town in Priol is not on transfer of vote but is on last-minute haste in making such transfer resulting grave mistake on the postal address on election card. The address two months back made card is “Housse no. 196/2, Gothan Veling-Mangeshi, Ponda South Goa,” a totally meaningless talk.
There is no village called “Veling-Mangeshi” as they are two different villages; instead, it should have been “Veling-Mardol” where Mardol is the post office of Veling and not Mangeshi.
Supporter of Sandip Nigalye claims that Gaude transferred his family votes to Veling to counter their Vocal campaign for local.
Govind opponent panchas of Veling-Priol Panchayat claim that Ex-MLA has brought his wife’s vote in Veling to field her in the forthcoming Panchayat election. Whereas, supporters of Sudin Dhavalikar in Marcaim claim that Govind Gaude now realizes that he cannot defeat Sudin Dhavalikar in Marcaim, which is the original constituency of Govind Gaude.
According to them, Govind Gaude fought till last to get a BJP ticket for Lavu Mamledar in Madkaim. When he realized that the last available opportunity had failed, he transferred his votes to Priol Constituency out of frustration.
At present, all eyes are set on reaction Revolutional Goans, who had otherwise lodged statewide campaign against dummy address voters. Questions have been raised on social media whether RG will be challenging Govind Gaude on this issue or not.
As per one of the social media posts, if RG doesn’t challenge, it will mean that RG targets only poor migrants, not mighty ones like Govind Gaude!.