Goemkarponn desk
PONDA & SANKHALI: It is a personal win for Goa CM Dr Pramod Sawant who’s panel not only won 11-1 in the Sankhali municipal polls but also his bete noire Dharmesh Saglani lost his seat.
Only a year ago Saglani had come to defeating CM Sawant and had lost by 666 votes in Aasembly polls. The Opposition had charged CM had won on “forceful” ballot votes.
However, a year later Sawant has cleared the air as in a clear mandate to BJP, the saffron party-backed candidates swept the Sankhali and Ponda municipal council with the complete majority. Chief Minister Pramod Sawant and Minister Ravi Naik passed with flying colours in the prestigious fight.
Dharmesh Saglani lost his hold over Sankhali municipal council, with the Saglani couple losing from Ward no two and Ward 5. In Ponda, Ravi Naik’s sons Roy and Ritesh Naik won from their respective wards.
The current terms of both the Ponda and Sankhali municipal councils are slated to end on May 20. With the results declared today, the new councils will have been formed and occupied office much ahead of that deadline.
Meanwhile, on the State level landscape, it was crucial that both Sawant and Naik gain control of the two civic bodies to restore their somewhat bruised political statures owing to their rather skimpy winning margins at the February 2022 assembly elections.
The civic bodies make up nearly 70 per cent of their respective Sankhali and Ponda assembly constituencies.
The political shadow in Ponda was even more intriguing, with the BJP camp led by Naik being challenged in the main by the panel owing allegiance to their coalition partner in the government MGP.
A record 87.56 per cent polling was recorded in the ten wards of Sankhali Municipal Council, while 74.66 per cent voter turnout was registered in the 13 wards of Ponda Municipal Council.
In Sankhali, 6070 voters out of a total of 6,932 cast their votes while, of a total of 14,271 electorates, 10,653 exercised their franchise in Ponda.
Four candidates, namely Pravin Blaggan (Ward No. V) and Riyaz Khan (Ward No. VIII) of Sankhali Municipal Council and Vishwanath Dalvi (Ward No. VII) and Vidya Punalekar (Ward No. XIII) of Ponda Municipal Council have already been declared elected unopposed.
BJP State President Sadanand Tanavade congratulated to all the BJP winners and Karyakartas for their remarkable performance in the Sankhali Municipal Council Election.
“Your hard work and dedication have paid off, and it’s truly a remarkable landslide victory. We are proud of your remarkable efforts and wish you all the very best in serving the people of Sankhali. Keep up the great work,” said Tanavade.
Sankhali Municipal Council
Ward 1
Yeshwant Shrikant Madkar (BJP)
Ward 2
Nikita Namdev Naik (BJP)
Ward 3
Siddhi Sandesh Porob (BJP)
Ward 4
Rashmi Dilip Desai (BJP)
Ward 5
Praveen Dwarkanath Blaggan (unopposed) (Together for Sanquelim)
Ward 6
Vinanti Vinayak Parsekar (BJP)
Ward 7
Brahmanand Raghunath Desai (BJP)
Ward 8
Riyas Hamid Khan (unopposed) (BJP)
Ward 9
Anand Babani Kanekar (BJP)
Ward 10
Dayanand Pundalik Boryekar (BJP)
Ward 11
Deepa Nilesh Jalmi (BJP)
Ward 12
Anjana Arjun Kamat (BJP)
Ponda Municipal Council
Ward 1
Roy Ravi Naik (BJP)
Ward 2
Virendra Tima Dhavalikar (BJP)
Ward 3
Jyoti Arun Naik (BJP) wins by 3 votes Cheryl D’souza has applied for recounting.
Ward 4
Venkatesh Anant Naik (independent)
Ward 5
Ritesh Ravi Naik (BJP)
Ward 6
Shaunak Vinayak Borkar (BJP)
Ward 7
Vishwanath Dilip Dalvi(Unopposed) (BJP)
Ward 8
Pratiksha Pradeep Naik (Rising Ponda)
Ward 9
Rupak Shambu Desai (BJP)
Ward 10 – Results awaited
Ward 11
Vedika Vivekanand Volvoikar (leads)
Ward 12 – Results Awaited
Ward 13
Vidhya Sadashiv Punalekar (unopposed) (BJP)
Ward 14
Anand Pandurang Naik
Ward 15
Sampada Kishor Naik
