Team Herald
PANJIM: What do suicide bombers do? They get into areas and strike at will destroying not those they target but themselves as well. The only one who survives is the mastermind who planned the attack.
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In Goa, the Independents display a similar if not totally identical role, metaphorically speaking. They are there for different purposes:
(i) To contest at the behest of parties, mainly the ruling, when the latter can’t win on its own ticket.
(ii) As the real (defacto) candidate of the party even though the party has fielded its own candidate. Curtorim and Cortalim are examples.
(iii) To cause disruption and cut votes of like-minded secular parties to benefit only one party. And Goans now know this.
For the last two Assembly elections, Goa is witnessing a proliferation of Independent candidates. In 2012, five Independents won while, in 2017, three Independents emerged victorious and two of them were inducted as Cabinet Ministers by the BJP after clobbering a majority.
Political analysts say that Independents are like proxy candidates often planted by the national parties like BJP to divide votes when their candidates cannot win on party symbol. Mostly in Salcete taluka, where the presence of BJP is low, the Independents assume importance thanks to the support they enjoy from the saffron party.
For the February 14 Assembly elections, Independent candidates contesting from Mandrem, Bicholim, Cortalim, Nuvem and Curtorim are set to cause division and disruption.
There are also reports that former MLAs contesting elections as Independents in Nuvem and Curtorim constituencies have been backed by the ruling dispensation in an attempt to split the secular votes and poach them if they win.
In case these Independents win, political observers say hope lies on them tilting towards the current dispensation, in any which way which is well understood.
However, there are some exceptions to this rule. The BJP’s worry is in Mandrem where former Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar quit the party after he was denied a ticket and entered the fray as an Independent candidate.
But the bottom line is that the ruling dispensation is very dependent on Independents.
