Goemkarponn desk
VASCO: Disappointed over their inability to get the desired lead for the BJP in the Lok Sabha elections from his constituency, Vasco MLA Krishna Salkar has admitted that mistakes had been made and lessons were learnt.
Speaking to The Goan on Wednesday, Salkar said a joint meeting would be convened with the Vasco BJP Mandal President Deepak Naik and other councillors and leaders to introspect the factors leading to a drop in margins as compared to the previous Lok Sabha elections in the Vasco constituency.
Admitting that there could have been confusion after former MLA Carlos Almeida was roped in at the last moment, Salkar felt that if Almeida had been roped in earlier, the Vasco BJP could have had a dedicated team to tackle the Lok Sabha elections and offered a way higher lead margin to the BJP candidate.
SUB-PAR PERFORMANCE
Salkar said while the BJP managed to provide a lead in the Vasco constituency, he was not happy with the results because they had been expecting a minimum lead of 5,000 votes.
“Vasco has a lot of people from across all states and this was the wedding season, due to which many people left for their native places and we lost over 1,000 BJP votes. We will have a joint meeting to study where we went wrong and to study those reasons why we fell short of a 2,000 margin,” said Salkar.
“It looks like there was a silent voting pattern and there could have been a shift of around 1,500 votes. We don’t know the reason for this shift which had never happened before. We plan to study each and every part of the constituency to analyse where we failed or where we went wrong to convince the people,” said Salkar.
“If we have got fewer votes, we definitely have to ask the people where we went wrong and we have to introspect internally where we faulted.”
CARLOS ALMEIDA FACTOR
Salkar admitted that one of the reasons for a decrease in margin could have been the plan to rope in a rival leader into the party.
“Sometimes when we get another leader and their supporters into the BJP, our core team may get silent. Some people may have definitely been upset with the move of the BJP to bring in Carlos Almeida but I did not expect it to affect the votes at such a huge level,” said Salkar.
“I feel that we got Almeida late into the party and if this move had been done earlier, we could have had a nice coordinated team. Roping in Almeida at the last moment could have definitely created confusion among the voters as well.”
POLL ANALYSIS
An analysis of the Vasco constituency showed that the BJP fared very well in most of the wards, while the Congress had done considerably well in minority-dominated wards
It was, however, surprising to note that the Congress fared extremely well in the Baina area, a ward led by Vasco BJP Mandal President Deepak Naik.
In Baina, which is represented by Vasco BJP Block President and Councillor Deepak Naik, the Congress performed better than the BJP in the polling stations 4 and 6.
In Kharewado, which is represented by Ward Councillor Motesh Monteiro, the Congress fared better than the BJP in Polling stations 14, 16, 17 and 18.
In Mangor, which is represented by Ward Councillors Fredrick Henriques and Devita Arolkar, the Congress had also performed better than the BJP in four polling stations 28, 32, 38 and 46.
