Goa votes today: BJP defends its two LS seats, fights for state govt’s stability

PANAJI: On Tuesday, when 11.35 lakh eligible voters go out to exercise their franchise, it will not only decide the two Lok Sabha seats but also the stability of the BJP-led state government as bypolls for three of the four vacant assembly seats will also be held simultaneously.
For the first time in a quarter of a century, BJP is going to the polls without its master strategist and posterboy Manohar Parrikar.It was Parrikar’s magic of stitching alliances and maneouvering the fence-sitters that saw the party regain the South Goa seat from Congress after 15 years in the last elections in 2014.
The North Goa seat has been held by Union minister Shripad Naik for four terms, and he is in the fray again seeking re-election for the fifth consecutive time.
He is pitted against state Congress president Girish Chodankar. Buoyed by the Modi wave, Naik had won the North Goa seat by over 1 lakh votes in 2014, a record so far. This time, with no Modi wave visible in the state, political analysts say the fight is on in both the parliamentary constituencies, though it’s advantage Naik in North Goa.
For the South Goa seat, sitting BJP MP Narendra Sawaikar is attempting to break the jinx to retain the seat for the second consecutive term and is battling it out with Francisco Sardinha, a three-time MP from Congress. The Salcete belt has traditionally been against BJP and it was only in 2014 that Parrikar managed to get a foothold. With eight of the 20 assembly constituencies falling in Catholic-dominated Salcete, it has been the bellwether of elections.

In the mining belt of South Goa, which has traditionally been the saffron stronghold, BJP will hope that the resentment of the mining dependents over loss of livelihoods owing to mining crisis, doesn’t dent its prospects. On the other hand, Congress, which has attempted to capitalise on the issue, will hope the anti-establishment sentiment over failure to restart mining operations will translate into votes for the party.
And there is an AAP factor too, in the South, with a former bureaucrat Elvis Gomes trying to test the waters. Whatever votes AAP garners will be at the cost of Congress and will split the “secular votes”.
Politically, bypolls for Mandrem, Shiroda and Mapusa seats appear more important as they will decide on the stability of the BJP-led government. Byelection to the first two constituencies was necessitated as the sitting MLAs resigned from Congress and joined BJP in October 2018 as part of the ruling party’s strategy to reduce the strength of Congress, which was single largest party in the assembly. Being the single largest, Congress, till then, was demanding that it be invited to form the government.
With the death of Parrikar, the Panaji seat has also fallen vacant and bypolls for it will be held on May 19.
In the 40-member Goa assembly, whose current strength is 36, BJP and Congress have 14 members each, while there are three members of BJP’s ally Goa Forward Party (GFP) and three independents supporting the saffron party. The other two seats are held by NCP and Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP).
Weeks ahead of the polls, BJP played a major political gamble by engineering defection in MGP, its alliance partner, as Deepak Pauskar and Manohar Azgaonkar switched sides. Subsequently, chief minister Pramod Sawant dropped former deputy chief minister Ramkrishna Dhavalikar from the cabinet after MGP declined to withdraw from Shiroda bypolls.
While MGP is locked in fierce battle with BJP in Shiroda, the regional party worked against BJP in the other two bypolls, and supported Congress in the Lok Sabha polls.
If the BJP loses the bypolls, the government led by Pramod Sawant, Parrikar’s successor, could be in trouble. In the assembly elections, two years ago, it was Parrikar who had cobbled up a government of disparate groups when BJP’s strength in the House was only 13 against Congress’s 17.
Secondly, speculations are that in the event BJP fails to form the government at the Centre, the Sawant-led government could be shaky. This is because without the Centre’s support, survival of government depending on more than one ally could be in question.
Understandably, Sawant is shuttling between one constituency to another meeting party MLAs and taking reviews of the support party candidates are getting. At an election meeting he urged the voters to vote for BJP in all the five constituencies so that there is stability to the state government.
Sawant will prove very powerful if BJP wins the bypolls and the two Lok Sabha elections. It is a tough task for the 46-year-old CM, who is trying hard to prove himself against odds.