The lion’s loud roar has considerably softened, its hunting ground that was once the entire Union territory of Goa has severely decreased, its popularity that stretched across sections has shrunk, but its survival instincts remain as sharp as in 1963. However irrelevant its name may be to the idea and identity of Goa, the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) survives to fight its electoral battles and wage political wars. As it preps up for another electoral battle, it has started a war hoping, perhaps, that it will draw attention and sympathy from untapped sources in its latest bid to remain afloat in the murky, swirling and unpredictable political waters of Goa.
Just four years ago, MGP turned 50, making it the oldest regional party in the State and giving it the distinction of having had at an MLA in every Assembly. Looking back, much has changed for the party from that day in 1963, when Dayanand Bandodkar decided to form a regional political outfit whose main programme would be merger of the then recently liberated territory of Goa with Maharashtra.
Arthur Rubinoff in his book ‘The Construction of a Political Community’ talks of how MGP came about saying, “In March of 1963, advocates of merger founded the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party whose only object (was) the integration of Goa into the State of Maharashtra. The organisation further believed the language of Goans is Marathi and (claimed) Konkani is a dialect of Marathi. It also considered Goa to be historically and geographically, culturally and economically, part and parcel of Maharashtra.” While merger has been put to rest, the language issue has been resurrected with even a Private Members Resolution introduced in the Assembly seeking to give Marathi official language status along with Konkani.
As MGP makes a fresh bid for power, with the possibility of an alliance with the Goa Suraksha Manch (GSM), politics in Goa could see a return to the 1960s and 70s when people voted on emotional issues, rather than on economic policies. MGP, over five decades after its formation, still affirms its identity with Marathi. The GSM has arisen out of the medium of instruction issue and is stridently loud on no grants to English language primary schools. An alliance between these two parties could lead to the Goan electorate reverting to voting as then did in the decades past.
A peep into Goa’s past electoral history indicates how the electorate voted on emotional issues. The first elections brought the MGP to power, but just three years later the electorate rejected merger through an Opinion Poll in 1967, yet MGP continued winning elections – it came back to power two months after the Opinion Poll – and over a period of time it went from being the party in power to the main opposition party, and today the main alliance partner in any government formed in Goa.
MGP dominated Goa’s political scenario in the first two decades after Liberation, governing the Union Territory from 1963 to 1979, edging out its main rival the United Goans Party at every election. In that period the Union Territory saw just two chief ministers—Dayanand Bandodkar and following his death in 1973 his daughter Shashikala Kakodkar. After losing the polls in 1980,
MGP never came to power again.
“The defeat of the MGP in 1980 marked the emergence of non-communal issue-oriented politics in Goa, for voters exercised their franchise on the bases of governmental performance for the first time. In the terminology of the Rudolphs, politics had evolved from horizontal to differential mobilisation as political parties became able to make appeals based on ideology, sentiment and interest. However, it is difficult to tell if the Congress victory formula represented a movement towards modern or a refinement of traditional politics,” wrote Rubinoff.
The closest the MGP came to forming a government after 1980 was in 1989 when under the leadership of Ramakant Khalap it won 18 seats in the 40 member Assembly. It was also a period when the party showed the willingness to change, but a series of setbacks, with defections from the party, ended any restructuring of the MGP, reducing its appeal to all sections in the State. In the years to follow Khalap himself quit the party, with a few of the old guard still holding fort in the party that once held its sway over Goa.
Today the party’s main influence lies in Ponda taluka and it has not won a seat outside this taluka in the last few elections. Even the alliance with the BJP in 2012 did not allow it to spread its influence beyond this taluka. If it hopes to change that in the 2017 elections, it will need more than rhetoric and falling back on the past to woo the voters. As it attempts to storm back in the State in 2017, its leaders have again brought up the Mundkar and Tenancy Acts that their past governments had enacted in the State. The Goa, Daman and Diu Agricultural Tenancy Act, 1964 and the Goa, Daman and Diu Mundkars (Protection from Eviction) Act, 1971 its legacy, and its attempts to gain votes on the basis of its past deeds, indicates that it is running out of ideas and issues.
Merger has been rejected, land reforms have been introduced. Language, though the passing of the Official Language Act, should have put the issue to rest still simmers. It is now the only issue with which MGP feels in can attract voters. But that may not augur too well for the Goan community and politics. In its latest attempt to win back power, MGP needs to stay relevant to the State’s issues rather than falling back on its past achievements.
(Alexandre Moniz Barbosa is Executive Editor, Herald)
