Goa Assembly Election 2022: Will Capt Viriato’s ‘Clean Image’ Help Him Win Over BJP’s Mauvin Godinho in Dabolim?

In 2017, Mauvin Heliodoro Godinho of Bharatiya Janata Party won the seat by defeating Premanand Nanoskar from Maharashtrawadi Gomantak with a margin of 2494 votes.

Goa Assembly Election 2022: Dabolim is a village in Mormugão and one of the 40 Legislative Assembly constituencies of Goa. In 2017, Mauvin Heliodoro Godinho of Bharatiya Janata Party won the seat by defeating Premanand Nanoskar from Maharashtrawadi Gomantak with a margin of 2494 votes.

This time, the Goa assembly election is all set to be a multi-cornered contest with the entry of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the Trinamool Congress (TMC), set to give the ruling BJP a tough fight. While AAP has announced that it will contest all the 40 seats, the TMC has allied with the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP). The Congress has joined hands with Vijay Sardesai’s Goa Forward Party (GFP).

In the 2022 elections, Six-term MLA and transport minister Mauvin Godinho is being challenged by Kargil war veteran Capt. Viriato Fernandes in Dabolim, home to the Indian Navy’s most important air base, INS Hansa. Meanwhile, AAP’s Premanand Nanoskar is also another player in this intense, multi-cornered fight. According to experts, Fernandes, though a political newbie, has a clean image, which is in sharp contrast to Godinho, who faces charges in a multi-crore power scam.

KEY CANDIDATES 

1. Capt Viriato Fernandes from Congress-Goa Forward Party
2. Mauvin Heliodoro Godinho from BJP
3. Premanand Nanoskar from AAP
4. Mahesh Bhandari from TMC-MGP

What does opinion poll say?

According to a poll conducted by Zee News, termed – ‘Janata Ka Mood’, Congress is gaining big in South Goa, the Congress-GFP alliance may get 41% vote share here, while BJP may bag 32%, TMC-MGP is likely to get 12%, Aam Aadmi Party 7%, and others may get 8% vote share. For North Goa, the Chief Minister Pramod Sawant-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is likely to gain 38 per cent of the vote share in the region as compared to 36 per cent in 2017. The vote of the Aam Aadmi Party is also likely to increase its vote per cent from 6 per cent in 2017 to 10 per cent in 2022.

FULL SCHEDULE: GOA ASSEMBLY ELECTION 2022

The term of the current Goa assembly will expire on March 15, 2022. The elections for the 40-member Goa Assembly will be held in single-phase on February 14. The votes will be counted and the results will be declared on 10 March 2022. The EC is expected to implement a strict Covid-19 protocol as it announces poll dates amid a surge in coronavirus cases in India. Chief minister Pramod Sawant will be contesting from Sanquelim while deputy chief minister Manohar Ajgaonkar will contest from Margaon.

• Date of Polling: February 14, 2022

• Date of Counting: March 10, 2022

Stay tuned with India.com for all the updates about the Dabolim Constituency. Click Here to go to India.com’s special Election page and read more about poll campaigns to election results, winners, losers, victory margin, and all other details.