Goa Assembly Election 2022: Will BJP’s Antonio Fernandes be Able to Retain Santa Cruz?

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.

Goa Assembly Election 2022: Santa Cruz is the largest village in Goa and one of the 40 Legislative Assembly constituencies of the caostal state. In 2017, Antonio Caetano Fernandes of Indian National Congress won the seat by defeating Hemant Dinanath Golatkar from Bharatiya Janata Party with a margin of 642 votes. However, 2 years later, Congress’ winning candidate Antonio Fernandes joined BJP, saying that he switched over for the development of the constituency. He will be pitted against Congress’ Rodolf Louis Fernandes and AAP’s Amit Palekar in the 2022 elections.

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).

KEY CANDIDATES 

1.  Rodolf Louis Fernandes: Congress
2. Amit Palekar: AAP
3. Antonio Fernandes: BJP

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 Santa Cruz 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.