<b>Goa assembly elections:</b> The coast isn't clear for any party

In the recent deacades, a clear majority has been rare in the state

No political party is in clover in Goa before the February 4 elections to the 40 legislative Assembly seats. Not even the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), that had sustained its victory in the 2012 state election by also taking both the Lok Sabha seats in Goa two years later. The BJP is now up against a breakaway group, set up by a section of its ideological parent, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), and has lost an ally, the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP), the state’s oldest regional outfit. 

The Congress, cast aside after its rout five years ago, is cleaved into three factions. Insiders concede it is not sufficiently robust to give the BJP a fight, let alone unseat the government. The Aam Admi Party AAP) arrived last April in the state capital, Panaji, in a blaze of hope on the promise of ushering in a credible alternative to the BJP and the Congress. It has not struck the correct balance between creating a space for regional concerns and sentiment, and pressing the remote from Delhi.

Confounding the confusion in a state that has always valued regional identity and aspirations are the local parties, new and old, whose leaders hope to augment their bargaining power in an inconclusive verdict. The previous assembly election was distinctive in that, after years, a party got a majority (21 of the 40 legislature seats), showing its numbers by getting the three MGP legislators on its side, ensuring the government lasted its term.

A hung Assembly was what the sundry regional parties hoped for because in Goa, traditionally, a formation with three or more legislators fancies itself as king-maker. The support such entities extend to a mainstream party like the Congress or BJP carries a price tag: Lucrative ministries and statutory positions, and more each time a government faces a floor test. 

“After many years, we are going it alone. Goa’s people are frustrated with the national parties because they only honour the decrees issued from Delhi and pursue a model of development that is at the cost of Goans,” says Pandurang Dhavalikar, the MGP MLA from Priol. He was a senior minister in the BJP-led government until he was dismissed with his brother, Sudin Dhavalikar, this month. The MGP instantly snapped its ties with the BJP. 

Ostensibly, the BJP faces little or no challenge from Congress or AAP. The Congress has enough problem on its hands after a string of former leaders set up new parties to place themselves atop a commanding height rather than be commanded to by Delhi. The BJP’s bugbear is an avuncular individual called Subhash Velingkar, who helmed the state unit of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh until August 2016. He was dismissed for unrelentingly questioning the state government’s policies. Velingkar’s ‘revolt’ was instigated by former Goa chief minister Manohar Parrikar’s refusal to rescind a 21-year-old Congress policy of giving government grants to English-medium primary schools run by the Catholic church and to confine aid to schools using Konkani or Marathi as their medium of instruction. In its 2012 election manifesto, the BJP had promised to do away with the policy but once in the saddle, Parrikar, now the Union defence minister, would not listen to Velingkar. He’d figured that his strategy to win over Christians and the church, and restyle the BJP as minority-friendly, could unravel.

Indeed, keen to not let implicitly combustible issues detract from the development agenda, the BJP’s campaign will focus on its government’s social schemes, in the shape of freebies for youths, women and squatters.

The RSS, flexible enough to array power and electoral success over ideological tugs, gave Velingkar a wide berth. The latter, who also heads the six-year-old Bharatiya Bhasha Surakha Manch (Forum to Safeguard Indian Languages), told Business Standard, “The Sangh initially supported my agitation but as the elections came close, the Sangh did not listen to me. I told the Sangh I was fighting against the Congress on the same issue but you never said anything, so why are you asking me to back out when I was speaking on the same issue against the BJP?”

His political instincts in place despite the ideological mooring, Velingkar quickly floated a party, the Goa Suraksha Manch (Protect Goa Forum) and got two others, the Shiv Sena and the MGP, on board. The coalition is underpinned on an alchemy of regionalism and pro-Hindu sentiment. When Antonio Costa, the Portuguese Prime Minister of Goan-Indian descent was in the state this month, the party demanded an apology from him for the destruction caused to this region by Portugal’s retreating army during the 1961 liberation and warned the Portuguese consular office against liberally issuing passports allegedly to Goan Catholics.

While the damage potential that Velingkar’s outfit can inflict on the BJP is untested, the MGP polled 37.7 per cent of votes in 2012, in alliance with the BJP; the Sena had 0.36 per cent.  Combined, the trio is expected to cut into the BJP’s votes. “Even a one-fourth division will cost the BJP considerably,” said B K Hari Prasad, general secretary of the Congress. 

The BJP has downplayed the Velingkar factor. Michael Lobo, the party’s Calangute legislator, claims, “This election will be a referendum on people raking up divisive issues. Nobody will go against Marathi or Konkani but youths want to study in English for jobs and mobility.” 

Asked whom the RSS will back, a Sangh senior said, “Our volunteers and wholetimers can vote as they wish to. Some of them have personal associations with certain candidates.” Laxmikant Parsekar, the chief minister, told Business Standard, “The real RSS will only support the BJP.”

Like the BJP, the Congress has no allies. However, Hari Prasad said they’d extend tactical support to its rebels, fighting as Independents or from small parties such as Atanasio ‘Baboosh’ Monserrate (wife Jennifer is in the Congress), Francisco Mickky Pacheco and Vijai Sardesai.

Like the BJP, the Congress has not announced its CM candidate. There is a three-way split between the groups led by Digambar Kamat, a former CM, Luizinho Falerio and Pratap Singh Rane. Kamat denied he ever headed a faction. “I don’t have aspirations. The party has not declared a CM candidate. The high command will have the last word if we win,” he emphasised.

Kamat said the Congress’s poll planks will include the ‘U-turns’ staged by the BJP on several issues, unfulfilled promises and the scams related to beach clearing and garbage treatment, although he would not explain why not a single alleged scam had yet enlarged into a major embarrassment for the BJP.

The AAP scored a point over the Congress and the BJP, having declared a former bureaucrat, Elvis Gomes, as its CM candidate. However, the pre-poll promises it held out like creating 50,000 jobs in five years, a monthly unemployment dole of Rs 5,000, old age pension and a rehabilitation package for those affected by the mining slowdown could stress an economy that is creaking under the weight of freebies and subsidies galore handed out by the BJP government. “The AAP is a formidable force. There’s a strong undercurrent in its favour,” claimed party spokesman Ashutosh, who is camping in Panaji.

With the three protagonists coping with their encumbrances, many eyes are watching the so-called marginal players and what they’d do once the results come in.

MODI GOVT'S BOUNTIES TO GOA'S BJP DISPENSATION
 

• Four new trains originating and terminating at Margao: Margao-Ratnagiri-Margao passenger benefitting those who commute from Maharashtra's Ratnagiri and Sindhudurg for work and business; bi-weekly Delhi-Goa Rajdhani Express; Margao-Kurla (Mumbai) double-decker express; Tejas premium train from Mumbai to Goa

• First diesel electric multiple unit (DEMU) train between Pernem and Karwar for local commuters

• Rs 75 crore for Electronic City at Tuem, Panaji; Rs 25 crore in excess of state government's proposal for Rs 50 crore

• Rs 9 crore for the fisheries sector, under the Blue Revolution project

• Increase in share from central taxes by Rs 1,000 crore annually

• Rs 99.99 crore for Goa tourism’s coastal circuit project, under the Swadesh Darshan Scheme

• Export duty on iron ore scrapped

• More than Rs 10,000 crore for infrastructure projects, including the construction of roads and safety and security initiatives for commuters

• Six rivers declared as inland waterways to enable the state government to clinch an agreement with the Centre for using and dredged from the rivers for road and highway construction across India 

• 20% subsidy for shipbuilders

PARTIES IN ELECTORAL FRAY

Performance in the 2012 Assembly elections and poll planks

40-member Assembly

BJP

2012: It got 12 seats (Vote percentage was 50.17%); In alliance with the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP)

2017: Contesting in 40 seats; no ally

Main challenge: Debutant Goa Suraksha Manch(GSM), a breakaway group of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and its allies, MGP and Shiv Sena

Chief ministerial candidate: None; Laxmikant Parsekar, the incumbent CM, says, “Question of declaring CM will come when we have an absolute majority”

Planks: Development; flagged off new Mopa airport, projected to create 40,000 jobs at an estimated cost of Rs 4,500 crore; Zuari bridge; six-lane highways; enhanced domestic household package for 1,40,000 women; augmented monthly allowance for housewives from Rs 1,200 to Rs 1,500 under the Griha Aadhar scheme; age cap under the Ladli Laxmi scheme for giving women Rs 1 lakh on marriage raised to 45 years; free packs of three 9 watt LED bulbs to each household under the Jyotirmay Goa scheme; and regularising 40,000  illegal structures built on private, government and comunidade (community) land

Imponderables:

• Will Manohar Parrikar still sell? 

• Damage by GSM and its allies

• Rebels

• Church that indirectly supported BJP in 2012 is silent. Christian vote

Congress

2012: : It got 9 seats(37.44% vote)

2017: Contesting 36 seats; seat-sharing arrangement in 4; 2 for Goa Forward; 1 for expelled Congress MLA Atanasio Monseratte of the United Goa Party and 1 for independent nominee, Rohan Khaunte

Main challenge: First-timer Aam Admi Party (AAP)

Chief ministerial candidate: None; former CM Digambar Kamat says, “I don’t have aspirations. I believe in doing my work”

Planks: “BJP hatao, Goa bachao” (Throw out BJP, Save Goa); U -turns by the BJP government; promises unfulfilled; mining slowdown, resulting in job losses; tourism decline after demonetisation; no new casino licences impairing the economy; corruption; and censorship 

of drama

Imponderables:

• Harm caused by factionalism

• Recovering the Christian vote

• Impact of having no CM face

• Votes taken away by AAP, rebels and Independents

AAP

2012: Non-existent;

2017: Contesting 40 seats; no declared alliance;

Main challenge: Congress, BJP and smaller parties;

Chief minister candidate: Elvis Gomes, a former bureaucrat;  "We are the only party with a CM face before the voters," said spokesman Ashutosh

Planks: Corruption; unemployment; increased compensation for out-of-work truck drivers in the mining region; mainstreaming tribals; and saving Goa from BJP-Congress's "destructive and divisive politics"

Imponderables:

• Shaking off the tag of being a "Delhi party";

• Lack of sufficient connect with the locals; and

• Support from the Church

Goa Suraksha Manch-MGP-Shiv Sena

2012: GSM non-existent; MGP (in alliance with BJP) got 3 seats and 37.67 vote percent; Shiv Sena: no seats and 0.36 vote percent;

2017: Contesting 40 seats as alliance;

Main challenge: BJP

Chief minister candidate: not declared; MGP's Pandurang Deepak Dhavalikar says, "We may not be kings but we are king-makers";

Planks: Stop governmental funds to English-medium primary schools run by the Church; grants to only schools in Marathi and Konkani medium; corruption; Manohar Parrikar's "authoritarianism"; and shut Goa's Portugal consulate;

Imponderables:

• Can MGP retain its vote share without BJP?

• Will RSS support Manch or BJP? Odds are it will back the latter;

• Whether alliance's narrow agenda will work against BJP's effort to look inclusive;

• How much of BJP votes will alliance take away; 

Smaller parties in Goa's alphabet soup:

• Nationalist Congress Party: polled 24.58% votes in 2012;

• Goa Vikas Party: 2 seats; 14.80% in 2012;

• United Goa Democratic Party: 6.37% votes in 2012;

• Goa Su-Raj Party: 1.40% in 2012

• Independents: 5 seats and 20.10% votes in 2012.

Seat numbers and vote percentages obtained from the Election Commission of India