In Goa, the turn of the turncoat

Goa witnessed 27 defections this term, and public irritation with this phenomenon is high

Goa's power and personality-based carousel politics, which has whittled down the significance of a political party, ideology and policy commitments, has afflicted all political parties in the state.

Facing unpopularity and anti-incumbency from a ten year power run, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which announced it will contest all 40 assembly segments solo for the first time, is half scared of its own bravado. Senior leaders were tweeting until the eleventh hour, hoping by some miracle that its former regional party partner would change its mind, ditch the new entrant Trinamool Congress (TMC) and rejoin a saffron alliance that yielded high dividends from consolidated Hindutva votes, rather than splitting them along caste lines.

Hindutva split and advantage turncoats

Deeply insulted over the BJP's repeated tardy dismissals of its ministers and engineering defections in its ranks, including poaching two of its probable 2022 candidates and nominating them on January 20 - the regional Maharasthrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) has once again snubbed the BJP's overtures.

Anti-incumbency factors and a split in Hindutva votes were the same twin factors that had reduced the BJP from its 2012 high of 21 seats to 13 in 2017. Taking no chances after the MGP's snub and its embrace of the TMC, the BJP battened down the hatches to offset its disadvantages, opting for an aggressive winnability-above-all factor as sole criteria for candidate selection. As the BJP went seat by seat, choosing winnability over ideology, integrity or loyalty, this has spelt out advantage Congress imports and turncoats, even at the cost of angering loyal hardcore supporters, alienating and scattering its cadres across several segments. The party could well see a bigger rebellion in its ranks after its repeatedly postponed candidate announcement.

Also read: BJP's first list for Goa polls stirs controversy over family raj, tickets to tainted candidates

In several seats, loyal leaders have lost out. Former chief minister Laxmikant Parsekar lost out again when the party nominated Congress defector Dayanand Sopte on January 20. Across 17-20 seats, the BJP will be opting for Congress, independent or MGP imports. But the perception drama of a party with no difference is far more dismal for the party in its Panaji seat, represented for over 25 years by former chief minister Manohar Parrikar, credited with building the BJP's legislative and ruling presence in Goa.

BJP Goa election in-charge Devendra Fadnavis has repeatedly rebuffed Panjim seat aspirant and Parrikar's son, Utpal Parrikar, as he plugged obviously for another Congress defector, the winnable Atanasio Monserrate, who was finally nominated on January 20. The irony for Utpal Parrikar is that his father crafted the BJP's winnability above all formula for its 2012 win, and his rival in Panjim was heralded into the BJP-led government on an earlier occasion by his late father as well.

. The big question for the BJP will be how it deals with the situation, in case Utpal Parrikar decides to contest as an independent.

Monserrate and his wife, Jennifer, have both been given tickets and were on the long list of couples seeking a BJP ticket, which had stalled its process. The other is ex-Congress MLA Vishwajit Rane, whose wife will now contest the seat his Congressman father Pratapsing Rane held for eleven consecutive terms. Another Congress import, the ailing Pandurang Madkaikar, wants his wife Janita to get the ticket in his stead, pitting her against the son of Union Minister Sripad Naik. This seat has not been called yet.

Congress troubles

However, the BJP's woes are nothing compared to the Congress party's, which is fighting off aggressive and resource-rich entrants, namely the TMC and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). Being resource-rich is an obvious advantage in Goa's paid news ecosystems, where major newspapers and channels pass off political plugs as front-page news.

The TMC has gone on a rampage against the Congress for the past four months, and the BJP and AAP have gained from that ugly contest, say some analysts. The latest salvo from the TMC was its smoke and mirror offering of an alliance-via-Twitter. The Congress also rebuffed that via Twitter. Congress election observer for the Goa polls, former Union finance minister, P Chidambaram, told national TV the TMC made no concrete offer.

"I suspect the TMC's Twitter alliance offer, which seems to me as posturing, because they have been on a consistent rampage against the Congress in Goa, is more aimed at engineering a national narrative and painting a particular picture of the Congress for its 2024 leadership tussle. That narrative may fly at the national level but will not have any traction in Goa. Here their actions seem to have belied their words. They have said less against the BJP, not much on Goan issues, but have gone all out to weaken the Congress," says columnist and analyst Manoj Kamat.

TMC failing to connect

There's a belief that the TMC may be attempting to protect itself from blame if the BJP gains, having skidded the anti-BJP plank in Goa off-kilter. There's a growing sense the TMC has failed to connect with the electorate in Goa, as leaders have begun to exit that party and return to the Congress.

A month after he ditched the Congress for the TMC, MLA Alexio Reginald Lourenco left the TMC, saying he had faced a "tremendous backlash" from his constituents for joining the TMC. He sought re-entry into the Congress but will now contest as an independent. The TMC's surprise announcement that it wanted its Rajya Sabha MP, Luizinho Faleiro, to contest an assembly segment in Goa does not seem to have gone down well with the senior leader, in a move that could potentially see the BJP pick up one more seat due to a split in votes.

Cluttered opposition space

The opposition space is already levelling up for multi-cornered contests with the AAP, TMC-MGP alliance, Goa Su-Raj Party, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP)-Shiv Sena (SS) crowding the opposition space with the main opposition party - the Congress-Goa Forward Party (GFP) alliance.

The NCP and Sena arrived on the scene in the past week and mopped up candidates that lost out in the Congress nominations. The NCP lost its leverage in the Goa space when its lone MLA Churchill Alemao defected to the TMC weeks ago, after spending his term unofficially allying with the ruling BJP, a move that went unchecked by the NCP. Despite its insignificant presence in Goa, the NCP-SS were also feeding into the national narrative that the Congress had failed to form an alliance with it in Goa, a la Maharashtra. Chidambaram said talks held until recently with the NCP-SS yielded no meeting ground.

Making an early start with its nominations, the Congress will contest 37 seats, leaving three for alliance partner GFP, which had sought five seats. Sticking to its no re-entry to defectors, the party, however, faces the loss of several of its winnable MLAs, who are now with the BJP.

With Goa having witnessed 27 defections this term, public irritation with this phenomenon is high, but, thus far, there is little sign of this translating into electoral rejection by the voting public. One compromise that the party made was inducting BJP minister Michael Lobo into the Congress and allocating his wife and an associate three seats in North Goa's Bardez taluka. Faced with a resurgent BJP making winnability its end-all and armed with a significant cache of its former party leaders, the Congress has been forced into reverting to some smart politics instead of sticking with its initial losing gamble of all new faces.

(The writer is a journalist based in Goa)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.