Why Trinamool's Goa blitz has misfired

Hindutva supporters have used Trinamool's Goa foray to sharpen the communal divide, polarise Goan society

The Trinamool Congress (TMC) has thrown its hat into the Goa Assembly election, slated for early 2022, with its slogan Goenchi Navi Sakal (new dawn for Goa). With zero presence in the state before it decided to target the Goa polls, the TMC has nevertheless unsettled the political arena with its high wattage campaign, run mainly by political strategist Prashant Kishor's Indian Political Action Committee (IPAC).

Making up for its late entry and powered by the IPAC's media campaign and strategic teams, the TMC has fast-forwarded a series of protests, following the Congress and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), on fuel price hikes and other local issues. However, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's much publicised Goa visit (October 28-30, 2021) was not as impactful as the IPAC/TMC team, working in Goa over the past two months, had hoped it would be.

The TMC expected Vijai Sardessai's Goa Forward Party (GFP), which has three legislators, to merge with it. "The real Durga, who is in West Bengal, needs to be brought to Goa to oust this Narkasur–like government", the GFP had said in anticipation of the merger. Sardessai was even offered chief ministerial projection in the TMC's Goa line-up but backtracked at the eleventh hour. "Asking a regional party to compromise its identity overnight becomes like an acquisition, which is against public sentiment. A merger will be a sell-out. Elections are a battle of perception, and I don't want to lose before it has begun," Sardesai told NDTV on his turnaround.

Also read: 'Kejriwal is a copymaster': Sawant accuses Delhi CM of copying his free pilgrimage scheme

The TMC opened its account in Goa on September 29, 2021, with the shock acquisition of former Goa Congress president and ex-chief minister Luizinho Faleiro resigning his Congress seat and joining the party. It projected itself as a front running formidable challenger in the Goa opposition space, currently dominated by the Congress. Exuding confidence, it declared its intent to contest all the 40 assembly seats on its own and said other opposition and regional parties would have to merge with it.

The TMC and IPAC demonstrated considerable financial heft. The TMC's pressers were at five-star hotels, and its flags and posters were plastered across Goa. The IPAC brought in 300-350 people from its Hyderabad offices to work in communication/media, strategic research and intelligence, political intelligence, networking, campaigning and field research teams across Goa's 40 assembly segments. It even got the support of a local newspaper that amplified its messaging.

Digital poster targeting Mamata Banerjee being forwarded on WhatsApp

By October end, with the GFP backing out and the Congress managing to prevail on senior leaders that the TMC had approached, the Bengal-based party quietly amended its language from "only merger" to "we are willing to ally with regional parties." The BJP and the Congress - the two major parties in the Goa political space - have contained the TMC impact thus far.

As a potential rebel magnet, likely to mop up and accommodate rebels and ticket rejects from both parties, the TMC could damage both parties. Many feel the real test of the TMC's impact will pan out after the ticket distribution by the BJP and Congress. Its descent into Goa had already upped the bargaining power of winnable sitting legislators and politicians with their respective parties.

Also read: Kejriwal promises pilgrimages galore for Goans if AAP wins power

The Congress - which believes the TMC and AAP's forays into Goa are principally aimed at poaching its secular vote base - initially eschewed criticism. Still, as Mamata Banerjee criticised the Congress during her Goa visit, the war of words between the two parties heated up. "The TMC has no support base of its own and is functioning on the strength of Prashant Kishor's Indian Political Action Committee (I-PAC) firm. Paid workers cannot replace party workers," Goa Pradesh Congress president Girish Chodankar said. Asked why the TMC had forayed into Goa three months ahead of the polls, Chodankar said: "Only Amit Shah and the Enforcement Directorate could answer that."

Kishor's sideswipes against Rahul Gandhi in Goa have garnered national attention, given that IPAC was in negotiations that failed with the Congress for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. And that TMC's Goa outing is also seen as Mamata Banerjee's positioning in national politics.

Trinamool faces the "outsider" tag in Goa

The Congress supporters in Goa managed to create a negative buzz around the new entrant on the social media platforms. It highlighted TMC's "outsider" status, lack of local ground support, purchasing power and backing by a corporate firm. The BJP and Hindutva supporters raised reported incidents of street violence in Bengal, alleged "appeasement of minorities", and the TMC's aggressive challenge to the Hindu nationalist framework.

According to analyst Cleofato Almeida Coutinho, three factors worked against the TMC in Goa by October end. The TMC's early attacks targeted the Congress more than the BJP, and it came to be perceived as splitters of the anti-BJP vote rather than unifying the opposition. The BJP's perceived gross misgovernance over two terms in power had stoked a strong anti-incumbency wave, with the party's stock in evident decline, before the TMC arrived on the scene upsetting the opposition dynamic.

While the Congress is the principal opposition, the AAP and GFP have built small pockets of influence but pose a significant nuisance value to the Congress by splitting secular votes. The TMC would be one more in the "secular" stable, while the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) cuts inroads into the Hindutva base it shares with the BJP.

Secondly, the TMC's overnight charge into Goa - the party is perceived as a Bengal based regional entity with no dearth of funds and an IPAC team, drawn mainly from other states, in two - clashed with Goa's regional identity. It accentuated the local populace's acute sense of displacement. The significant presence at TMC pressers and meetings of political employees and high profile leaders from Bengal with no prior history of groundwork in Goa has hindered the TMC's acceptability in the state.

Also read: Goal is to serve country; time to focus on my journey in politics: Leander Paes

The media in Goa had highlighted that TMC had unsuccessfully contested elections twice before, the 2012 Assembly and 2014 Lok Sabha polls, but lost and left on both occasions. "There is already the perception among Goans that Goa gets used for its smallness," says Almeida Coutinho. Since it is a small state, Goa has seen political parties enter its electoral fray not as serious contenders but to mop up the six per cent vote percentage required to gain and retain the national political party status before the Election Commission.

Sensing the regional angle was a political downer, the TMC quickly course-corrected. During her visit, Mamata Banerjee stressed coming together of regional parties to tackle New Delhi's "dadagiri" and repeatedly underscored that Goa would decide its future. The TMC also started getting its newly inducted local leaders and activists, drawn from the Congress, BJP and AAP over the past month, to address its press conferences.

But the tag has been challenging to shed, especially when the initial "influencers" and editors that IPAC has used to drive TMC's mission in Goa have a stronger Bengal than Goa connect. With the regional GFP backing down on the merger, the TMC currently finds left with only Faleiro (who himself faces anti-incumbency) and minor political activists to show in its line-up, despite a month-long high wattage Goa blitz and an IPAC driven media buzz.

Mobile hoarding in Mapusa city says

Former actor Nafisa Ali and tennis player Leander Paes joining the TMC created national media storylines, helped by the dozen media teams that IPAC facilitated during Mamata Banerjee's Goa visit. But on the ground, neither carry much political weight. The highly opportunistic nature of Goa's political field has further scalded the TMC in the perception battle. The TMC has positioned itself as ready to tackle the BJP more aggressively and "seriously" than the Congress. However, the allies it has sought in Goa - the state's regional parties - have all been in coalition with the BJP even as late as July 2019. This has garnered considerable ignominy on social media. The GFP's Vijai Sardesai, before he was dropped, was deputy chief minister in the BJP-led coalition government.

The 2017 hung electoral verdict saw the Congress win 17 seats as the single largest party. The party lost its chance to rule when the GFP reneged on its promised anti-BJP stance and allied with the BJP. The Congress subsequently lost 12 MLAs in defections to the BJP and has since decided to close its doors to readmitting defectors. To Goa's ideologically fluid but winnable, party-hopping businessmen politicians - a new political party is just one more option to choose from when other doors shut.

The third factor affecting the TMC in Goa is the overt communal polarisation that Hindutva groups have evoked and the upswing this brings to the BJP's flagging popularity. "Jai Shri Ram" hoardings appeared overnight in Goa for the first time on the eve of the West Bengal chief minister's visit. Other posters depicted Goa's Hindu mythological creator Parashuram firing arrows at a slippered sari-clad torso. Some other hoardings in Konkani warned that peaceful Goa would be finished if the political violence and anarchy prevalent in Bengal got a foothold in Goa. The TMC accused the ruling BJP when Mamata Banerjee's posters were defaced across Goa.

Also Read | BJP calls me anti-Hindu, but TMC also stands for 'temple, mosque and church': Mamata Banerjee

Saffron elements flexed muscle in a Muslim residential south Goa area on October 31 over alleged pro-Pakistan slogans, galvanised crowds and used the incident to warn Hindu parties and leaders against aligning with the TMC. The BJP flew down Tejaswi Surya, the party's controversial Lok Sabha MP, indicating its willingness to shift to hard Hindutva politics in Goa. The BJP had eschewed such a policy when former chief minister Manohar Parrikar had welcomed Christian legislators into the party from 2012 onwards.

Thus far, the TMC's responses have been muted to the saffron provocations. Goa's political debate, for the first time, evoked gods and goddesses ahead of Mamata Banerjee's visit. Goa Chief Minister Pramod Sawant's warning that the arrival of other political parties, like the Trinamool Congress, could upset the state's social harmony prompted a local editorial to plead that "elections will come and go…there will be winners and losers," but "Goa will be the biggest loser for it will be robbed of its peaceful identity known all over."

(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.