Even after much fanfare and support from 53 NGOs, Hansel D’Souza, citizen’s consensus candidate, has lost his bid for Andheri West Assembly seat.

D’Souza, with just 10,563 votes, fell way off the mark. Winner Congress’ Ashok Jadhav won with 59,900 votes while Shiv Sena’s Vishnu Kargaonkar got 27,818 votes and the MNS candidate secured 18,233 votes.

“The result has disappointed everyone. We had big plans for the constituency and none of the political parties could have matched our manifesto,” said D’Souza.

D’Souza said it was the apathy of middle class voters that cost him the seat. “The same people have been the beneficiaries of our work and yet they did not come out and vote for us,” he said.

However, he admitted that certain limitations during the campaign had created a communication gap between him and the voters. “The window to communicate our agenda to the citizens was small and we got just nine days to do that. Because our campaign was around infrastructure development, we needed more time,” he said. “But we did get tremendous response from certain pockets where our campaign had been more effective,” said D’Souza.

However, he said this electoral defeat will not deter him continuing his work. D’Souza, along with fellow activist, plans to get back to civic activism with much more vigour.

“It will be an uphill battle from now but we plan to pursue our agenda with even more vigour. Elections were a shortcut for development as things get done quickly if you have power. This was a factor that tempted us to contest the election,” said D’Souza.

... contd.