ROQUE DIAS | NT
BENAULIM
The coastal constituency of Benaulim in Salcete taluka, which boasts of many starred hotels, lacks a primary health centre, a waste management plant and a football ground of its own.
In absence of a primary health centre, people are greatly inconvenienced and forced to go either to the healthcare facility at Cansaulim or Chinchinim.
Garbage has also been a bane of the tourism-centric Benaulim assembly segment.
Garbage from many hotels makes its way onto the roadsides giving an ugly look to the villages coming under the constituency. Hence a waste management plant is the need of the hour.
Tourist taxi operators and shack owners also have their fair share of problems. They complain that none of the elected representatives ever tried to resolve grievances on priority.
Fisherfolk living mainly in Wadi and Vaswaddo in Benaulim, Varca, Fatrade and Cavelossim rue about the lack of fish drying yards and storage facilities. Mario Fernandes, a resident of Benaulim, says, “Health centre is need of the hour for Benaulim constituents. People have to rush to Cansaulim or to Chinchinim for healthcare services. Our elected representatives in the past – Francisco Xavier Pacheco and Churchill Alemao – despite being ministers earlier, did not bother to have a separate primary health centre. The present MLA’s efforts also came a cropper. If the basic needs cannot be provided by the elected representatives, what else can we expect from them?”
To be fair to the government, the constituency does have a sub-centre, where polio doses are administered to children.
And promising to resolve all these problems, seven candidates are in the fray in Benaulim. But it is likely to be a three-way contest between Churchill Alemao of the NCP, Royla Fernandes of the AAP and the seating MLA Caetano D’Silva, who deserted the Goa Vikas Party and is contesting as an Independent candidate.
While the anti-incumbency factor went against Churchill Alemao’s daughter Valanka Alemao in 2012 assembly elections helping D’Silva get elected, it remains to be seen if Churchill Alemao can avenge the defeat this time.
D’Silva’s manifesto published in Roman Konkani and English seeks a second term to complete the projects proposed for the constituency.
The sitting MLA looks for re-election on the ‘achievement’ of developmental works worth Rs 500 crore, which include improvement of roads networks, electricity and water supply.
Churchill Alemao, on the other hand, is trying to gain sympathy on the grounds that he was “innocently” jailed for 64 days in the Louis Berger case.
Supporters of AAP candidate Royla Fernandes, a former sarpanch of Benaulim, claim that Royla has a good rapport with many a people.
John Fernandes, who contested the last election, is back in the election fray. This time he is contesting on his foe-turned-friend Francisco Xavier Pacheco’s Goa Su-Raj Party ticket.
ZP member of Benaulim Maria Rebello, who is also in the fray as Independent since she missed the Congress bus, pins hopes on the womenfolk even as she faces the challenge posed by the candidature of social activist Judith Almeida.