Goemkarponn desk
CANACONA – Officially wresting back the Canacona seat into BJP’s kitty, Ex-minister Ramesh Tawadkar re-wrote the history whereby he once revolted to defeat BJP, only to win- back the seat for the saffron party in a dramatic return to the party fold.
Ramesh Bombo Tawadkar, who in a masterstroke polled 9063, rallied to race ahead Ex-Dy Speaker Isidore Fernandes (6012), after initially way behind a resurgent congress candidate Janardhan Bhandari in round one of the nine rounds votes counting.
Tawadkar had an unexpected lead of 3051, keeping way behind Fernandes, and even Congress candidate Janardhan Bhandari who initially took the lead in the first rounds, was overtaken by Tawadkar by a second-round counting itself.
The fourth major aspirant Ex-Canacona MLA Vijay Poi Khot (4791), ended up a poor fourth behind Bhandari (5351).
This victory is the second one for Tawadkar in the Canacona constituency (2012), while the fourth one is in Tawadkar’s political journey (the other two being in the erstwhile Poinguinim constituency).
For Fernandes, this is the 5th defeat in his political ladder, since Fernandes first time unsuccessfully contested as an Independent candidate in the year 1994(Poinguinim constituency), two of his last defeats (2012 & 2022-present one) in the Canacona constituency.
While Bhandari’s defeat is a raw one in his political career, this is the third defeat for Vijay Poi Khot, who twice lost as a BJP candidate (1999 and 2017) and presented one as an Independent candidate twice won earlier (2002 & 2007).
Incidentally, Tawadkar’s winning votes percentage is 31.11%, against Isidore’s 20.64%, Bhandari (18.37% and Poi Khot (16.45%).
RG’s Prashant Pagi getting 1599 votes @ 5.49% against TMC’s Mahadev Dessai polling 1066(3.66%) has become a newfound political upheaval in Canacona.
While AAP with its candidate Adv Anoop Kudtarkar couldn’t garner more than 835 votes, another surprise of 119 electorates voting to an unknown independent candidate Kanay Pagi, however, failed to escape the bottom line with even as many as 296 preferred to press for NOTA.-