Antonio Gaonkar did create an upset in 1994 winning on a UGDP ticket, and the only other candidate beyond Congress to triumph here is Aleixo Reginaldo Lourenco with Save Goa Front in 2007.
Lourenco won the last two elections on a Congress ticket and looked set for another term, until he quit the party, joined TMC and then, quite inexplicably, resigned to now contest as an Independent.
The 52-year old is flat on his face today, bereft of a party with onlookers wondering if the former champion is out or has it in him to last another round. Wherever you go in this constituency, people just can’t explain Lourenco’s moves.
Curtorim consists of four villages — Curtorim, Camorlim, Rachol and Raia, and three wards of Margao Municipal Council (MMC). The constituency has more than 29,000 voters with women outnumbering men.
In 2017, Lourenco polled 12,722 votes, winning with a margin of 7642 votes. The BJP came a distant second with 5080 votes. AAP pulled in 2688 votes or 12.75% of the total votes polled.
A largely agrarian and Christian-dominated constituency, Curtorim has been ignored by successive governments, but the step-child treatment has been accentuated in the last decade as Lourenco sat among the opposition benches. Failure to resolve the Sonsoddo garbage mound, poor solid waste management, unemployment and lack of basic amenities plague the constituency.
Families and local youth demand government jobs and major infrastructure projects.
As a traditional Congress bastion, former zilla parishad member Moreno Rebello hopes to keep the Congress flag flying while also counting on the party leadership to form the government.
Local residents say Rebello will have to sweat it out to become a legislator for the first time.
Of the eight candidates in the fray in Curtorim, AAP’s Domingo Gaunkar can inflict severe damage on the Congress camp.
Gaunkar, who has been working in the constituency well before the Covid-19 pandemic hit the state, could make tremendous inroads in the Catholic ST community in Raia and Rachol.
BJP candidate Anthony Barbosa also hails from the ST community, but given the anti-BJP sentiment that courses through Curtorim’s alleys and valleys, an upset from this corner is unlikely, say locals.
“All the parties are the same but this time we need to bring in a change,” said a local motorcycle pilot.
For Rebello, his former party colleague remains a dark horse.
Lourenco stood out as a legislator, emerging as one of the better performing one in the 40-member assembly house. Today, he is out in the cold and he has only himself to blame.
On February 14 when Curtorim goes out to vote, we will know if Lourenco’s love affair with the constituency continues or whether his perplexing moves proves to be his undoing.
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