MARGAO: Congress-backed candidate has retained control of ward number 21 of the Margao municipal council with Deepa Shirodkar Monday romping home with a comfortable margin of 238 votes in the by-election held on Sunday.
The by-election was necessitated following the untimely demise of ward councillor Ashlesha Naik, around six months ago.
The counting began on Monday morning and Shirodkar (868 votes) took an early lead against her nearest rival Succorina Fernandes, who managed to get 630 votes while Sonali Kale managed only 76 votes.
Speaking to reporters after the results were declared, Shirodkar said she intends to make ward 21 the most developed and beautiful ward in Margao and also thanked the workers, especially women who supported her during her campaigning.
Speaking to media, Margao MLA Digambar Kamat said, “We never had doubt that we would retain the seat; the question was by how many votes we would win.” He said the by-election is a referendum on the work that was being done in the ward, which, he said, has been with Congress support for 15 years. He said this time the number of votes has increased threefold and thanked the people of Aquem for the continued support. He also thanked the workers who toiled hard to retain the seat.
Meanwhile, Kamat on Monday clarified that he was not present at polling booth on Sunday during polling and added that he did not interfere in the polling process on the day of the election.
