BJP’s larder of leadership needs serious augmentation to handle Parrikar’s absence

Mr Manohar Parrikar’s health concerns have quite clearly jolted the BJP in Goa forcing it to take a long look at the state of its next level of leadership, its ability to  keep the party strong and united and manage the coalitions successfully.

Mr Parrikar’s short (thus far) forced absence has compelled the party to run a scan of its party’s next level of leadership. Its senior most leadership in the earlier Assembly was wiped out in the 2017 elections starting from former Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar, Rajendra Arlekar and Dayanand Mandekar. What is significant here is that their electoral defeats have also led all of them to take virtual sanyas even within the party as it grapples with the weight of running a coalition, with at least one of its allies,  the Goa Forward, linked to the individuality of the Chief Minister and not with the party.

Even as the BJP waits for the Chief Minister’s return, this is perhaps the best possible time for the party to introspect and plan its leadership and growth in Goa for the next ten to fifteen years but it should know where to start. It spent the last year trying to get its governance to shine under the umbrella protection and guidance of Mr Parrikar. But while he was seen as the banyan tree, the party should have planned better to keep the next tier well oiled, and ready to take up long term challenges.

In the eventuality of the Chief Minister taking longer to return on account of his treatment and health concerns, the BJP will have to  display its organisation’s strength in projecting a leadership that can fill Mr Parrikar’s role in his absence. The larder of leadership looks to be bare and it is in this emptiness that the BJP has to look for a fresh face.

Perhaps the crisis, albeit temporary, brings in its wake an opportunity, though it is still uncertain in what direction or how soon the party will be able to establish a leader who could be Parrikar’s understudy and have confidence of the rest of the party.

The significance of having to agree to MGP’s Mr Sudin Dhavalikar taking charge of the government needs to be underlined strongly. The BJP clearly could not offer an acceptable leader to be in charge of the government for even a week in Parrikar’s absence. But there’s a silver lining in this predicament too. The party has quite a few MLAs who have years of politics left in them and ‘young’ by political standards. The BJP now needs to create a leadership team spanning across the legislature and the organisation, which will work for this term as well as plan for the next term.

The state of the party and where it stood after the elections of 2017, will become visible if the massive shadow of the political banyan tree, which Parrikar remains, is even temporality taken off. The very fact that there is speculation over the political stability of this government and several claims and counter claims being met, is an indication that even the chief minster's absence due to health reasons is reason enough to trigger political rumblings.

Therefore his ill health is a time, when more than the government or coalition compulsions, the BJP’s own political road map needs to be revisited and fortified. This will also help as and when the Chief Minister gets back to better health and work.