Current MLA (Party): Dr Pramod Pandurang Sawant (BJP)
Winning Margin: 2,131
Traditional Stronghold of BJP/ Dr Pramod Pandurang Sawant
Main Poll Issue: Closure of mining, Unemployment, Inflation
Voter Demographics:
Total Population: 37,867
Total voters: 27,491.
Male voters: 13,557
Female voters: 13,934
Voter turnout at last poll (2017): 90.43 %
Current MLA (Party): Digambar Vasant Kamat (Indian National Congress)
Winning Margin: 4186
Traditional Stronghold Indian National Congress/Digamber Vasant Kamat
Main Poll Issue: Unemployment, a legacy garbage dump, sewerage, traffic congestion, demand of burial ground for Muslims, Water shortages
Voter Demographics:
Total Population: 40,392
Total voters: 29,434
Male voters: 14,435
Female voters: 14,999
Voter turnout at last poll (2017): 78.55 %
A stronghold of Goa's oldest regional party, the Hindutva leaning Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party and its current leader Ramkrishna Sudin Dhavlikar, this interior Goa segment of Marcaim is in the temple taluka of Ponda. Dhavlikar has been winning here for multiple terms since 1999, the last time in 2017 with the highest electoral margin in those polls. MGP is in an alliance with the Trinamool Congress in Goa, and though the alliance has not officially named Dhavlikar, he is the defacto chief ministerial candidate of that alliance. The MGP has managed to win between 3-5 seats in the past four assembly terms and has adroitly managed its numbers to stay on the winning side, joining either the Congress or the BJP in several hung assembly verdicts or to shore up treasury bench numbers. With that strategy, Dhavlikar has been a minister in successive governments, and was last deputy chief minister in the BJP coalition government, before he was dropped in 2019. The regional saffron MGP's electoral and political fortunes are tied up with Sudin Dhavlikar and his brother Pandurang Deepak Dhavlikar, who run the party, and some say prefer it not expand, to retain control of its fortunes. Marcaim is also the headquarters of the controversial Hindutva Sanatan Saunstha organisation, and the family maintains close links with the same.
Current MLA (Party): Ramkrishna Sudin Dhavlikar (Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party)
Winning Margin: 13,680
Traditional Stronghold of Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party/ Ramkrishna Sudin Dhavlikar
Main Poll Issue: Unemployment, Lack of Playgrounds
Voter Demographics:
Total population: 38,345
Total voters: 28,151
Male voters: 13,826
Female voters: 14,325
Voter turnout at last poll (2017): 86.55 %
Current MLA (party): Atanasio Monserrate (Congress/BJP)
Winning Margin: 1758
Traditional Stronghold of BJP/ Atanasio Monserrate
Main Poll Issue: Unemployment, flooding, water supply, parking and traffic congestion, nuisance from casinos and major events.
Voter Demographics:
Total population:32,174
Total voters: 22,489
Male voters: 10,619
Female voters: 11,870
Current MLA (party): Vishwajit Pratapsingh Rane (BJP)
Winning Margin: 5,678
Traditional Stronghold of Congress/Vishwajit Pratapsingh Rane
Main Poll Issue: Land rights, forest rights
Voter Demographics:
Total Population: 38,818
Total Voters: 31,076
Male Voters: 15,350
Female voters: 15,726
Voter turnout in 2017: 87.83 %
Current MLA (party): Vijai Sardesai (Goa Forward Party)
Winning Margin: 1,334
Traditional Stronghold of Goa Forward Party/ Vijai Sardesai
Main Poll Issue: Garbage treatment, unemployment, burial grounds
Voter Demographics:
Total Population: 43,450
Total voters: 30,600
Male voters: 14,624
Female voters: 15,976
Voter Turnout in last poll (2017): 79.48 %
Current MLA (Party): Mauvin Godinho (BJP)
Winning Margin: 2,494
Traditional Stronghold of Mauvin Godinho
Main Poll Issue: Unemployment, coal hub infrastructure damage to environment, constitution of the Mormugao Port Authority and its extensive powers, low private sector wages, conversion of agricultural land, erratic power supply, irregular water supply
Voter Demographics:
Total Population:41,871
Total voters:23,602
Male voters: 11,805
Female voters: 11,797
Voter turnout at last poll: 77.14 %
Current MLA (Party): Michael Lobo (BJP)
Winning Margin: 3,825
Traditional Stronghold of Congress/ Michael Lobo
Main Poll Issue: Denotification of villages from the Planning and Development Authority, noise pollution, dance bars, tourist saturation, garbage, littering, beach mismanagement.
Voter Demographics:
Total Population: 33,387
Total voters: 25,389
Male voters: 12,389
Female voters: 13,000
Voter turnout at last poll (2017):81.84 %
9.Poriem: Generational drama
The family seat of former Congress chief minister Pratapsingh Rane made waves because of a will-he-won't-he drama that played out before filing of nominations. Pratapsingh Rane has held the seat for eleven terms and a record fifty years. With his son Vishwajit, now in the BJP, the Congress was keen that Pratapsingh contest and keep the seat within the Congress fold. Vishwajit however had been grooming his wife Deviya to take on the mantle, considering his 83-year-old father is past another election. The BJP meanwhile bestowed lifetime cabinet status on the senior statesman, as a placatory gesture to have the seat in its kitty. It nominated Deviya Rane for the BJP ticket in Poriem. Pratapsingh Rane gave the impression of being keen to contest as a loyal Congressman and defer any suggestion that he had switched sides. He finally bowed out of the race on the penultimate day, after a bit of drama that seemed like he would contest against his daughter-in-law. The Congress kept the seat open for him, finally nominating another Rane, Ranjit Rane from the same clan to fight the seat. Another clan member, Vishwajit K Rane, has moved from the BJP to AAP, making it a contest of the Ranes in Poriem.
Current MLA (party): Pratapsingh Raoji Rane (Congress)
Winning Margin: 4,066
Traditional Stronghold of Congress/Pratapsingh Raoji Rane
Main Poll Issue: Land rights, Unemployment
Voter Demographics:
Total population: 42,477
Total voters: 32,542
Male voters: 16,177
Female voters: 16,365
Voter turnout at last poll (2017) : 89.91 %
10: Vasco-da-Gama: Infra hub resists
The port city of Vasco da Gama is Goa's most densely populated commercial city, which houses the Goa Shipyard, a defence establishment. Within and nearby are the sprawling Indian naval bases of INS Hansa and the Mormugao Port. The constituency has seen some of the biggest infrastructural projects of the government over the past years, creating road and rail networks to carry imported coal from private berths of the port to steel mills in neighbouring Karnataka. Increased coal handling and port expansion has seen continuing protests in the city and on the coal route, with citizens of the state protesting the location of a coal hub and coal movement. Seeking a third term is the sitting MLA, who has shifted parties this time to the Congress, after winning the seat twice as a BJP candidate.
Current MLA (party): Jose Luis Carlos Almeida (BJP)
Winning Margin: 1,351
Traditional Stronghold of BJP/ Jose Luis Carlos Almeida
Main Poll Issue: Coal Pollution, Displacement of Fishing Communities and livelihoods due to Port Expansion, traffic congestion, creaking infrastructure, poor sanitation
Voter Demographics:
Total Population: 43,402
Total voters: 35,165
Male voters:18,060
Female voters: 17,105
Voter turnout at last poll (2017):76.62 %
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