In the salubrious climes of leafy Shiroda, a little ahead of the last Assembly elections, Minister Mahadev Naik was ensconced in his campaign office meeting visitors, hangers on, favour seekers and some party workers. Some of them asked for campaign expenses and regular payouts. The story that has emanated from the confines of that room, though not independently verified from Naik himself, is that he purportedly said that he has no money to spend and asked fund seekers go and ask the politician who owned liquor stores. The person he was referring to was his own party colleague who was also a BJP candidate from another constituency. 

This apparently innocuous, and perhaps even irrelevant anecdote, turned out be very relevant in transforming into one more brick in the wall that came up between Naik and his followers, especially his backward caste based ones, who felt that their leader was not doing enough to help caste members with jobs, favours and funds when needed.

But Mahadev Naik’s story was not an isolated one. Look at galaxy of politically fallen leaders across the swathe of the Northern coastal belt – Mandrem, Pernem, Siolim, Saligao – and what do we see in common apart from ‘anti-incumbency’ which led to the stars, each a stupendous heavyweight, fading into the inky political sky. Each of them – Laxmikant Parsekar, Rajendra Arlekar, Dayanand Mandrekar and Dilip Parulekar – happened to be tall backward caste leaders. And while the pressures of having to deliver on promises fell one each minister do take into account the main reasons for BJP’s slump in 2017 was the failure to create jobs and give positions of importance.

And while a modern progressive Goa, needs to look beyond caste lines, grassroots Goa reacts politically when there are fault lines in the social engineering process. 

Traditionally and even naturally, the marginalised sections have constantly sought empowerment and the means of that empowerment has been government jobs and positions such as clerks, OSDs, members on boards of government corporations, as directors and so on. Moreover this is a section which has a sense of rightful entitlement in order to level the playing field, as it were. Therefore, when the job promises could not be met, because they were linked to investments made in the State, the OBCs cried out loudest.

Even after the formation of this government, the need to string a coalition together and deliver governance has become the leitmotif of this government as it naturally should be. Governance will be under test, but a relatively easy financial situation will get projects off the block. But much as governance or the lack of it influences the next election, the significance of social engineering, especially at a point when the OBCs, as a block have caused game changing political damage to the BJP in the last election, cannot be underplayed. 

And this is a challenge that has to be accepted and dealt by the government of course, but perhaps more so, by the party organisation and that includes not just the state organisation but the larger parivar and those who control it in the larger pranth, under which Goa falls. This challenge is even greater because the party has no ministers of the original parivar stock in the government barring the Chief Minister. Francis D Souza the only other ‘original’ BJP minister is, to be honest, functioning at half his capacity due to nagging health concerns. Therefore even for positions and favours, the dependence on delivery is on the non-BJP or the newly turned BJP ministers. And this is important because the basic tenet of social engineering is empowerment and the definition of empowerment has been reduced to benefits derived from government.

And it is here that the new BJP ministers like Vishwajit Rane, Mauvin Godinho or Pandurang Madkaikar, according to many organisational men and party workers, are delivering more on simple day to day issues. Here is an example. There was an Assistant Engineer in the power department in Taleigao called Gangu Kuttikar, who according to the BJP’s MLA candidate Datta Prasad Naik was unable to understand the electrical circuits of Taleigao leading to frequent power breakdowns. The request to move him out was rejected by the earlier power minister Milind Naik. When Madkaikar took over as Power minister in this government, Kuttikar was moved out in eight days. But interestingly, Kuttikar’s, (an ST officer) case was argued by none other than Art and Culture Minister and very prominent ST leader Govind Gawde. Gawde argued that Kuttikar should remain in Taleigao but Madkaikar did not budge. The first takeaway is that Madkaikar delivered when Milind Naik did not. The second takeaway is that with Minister Gawde intervening to protect a power department engineer, there is no further evidence needed on why caste based considerations are so critical for politicians. It’s a no brainer really.

Meanwhile Health Minister Vishwajit Rane may have embarked on big ticket projects like the Super Speciality Block at GMC and getting the Health Department back to shape, but he appears to be scoring more brownie points on matters much more simple and humane. When anyone, especially a party linked person calls for some assistance in GMC, the Minister makes senior department heads in GMC call the person (and not the other way around) and simply tell him to reach the hospital and that the staff would be waiting at the entrance to escort them in and attend to the concerned patient immediately. CCP corporator Kishore Sashtry, for instance, is over the top for ministerial assistance of this nature that his wife received at GMC recently.

While this hasn’t been publically expressed, irrespective of how good your party’s governance is, the ‘jobs for the boys’ mantra needs to be chanted. The OBCs, compete with the Scheduled Tribes on one hand and with the Saraswats and the Gomantak Marathas on the other for positions and government benefits, and they expect representation on committees, corporations, departments and so on. At this juncture one can recall a few who have secured positions either on merit or because the caste consideration may have played a part like the ZP member of North Goa who is on the NGPDA board, Datta Prasad Bhabolkar or Datta Vijai Naik who heads the Goa Meat Complex and Dr Sheetal Naik who took charge as Chairperson of Bal Bhavan two days ago. 

Dr Sheetal Naik, is incidentally the wife of Datta Prasad Naik, who was the former Chairman of the Goa Electronics limited and the man who did the data crunching and record keeping of all the social welfare schemes, in the previous tenure but hasn’t yet been given any government position yet. He lost to Jennifer Monserrate of the Congress in the assembly elections from Taleigao, and may have to accept, Jennifer’s husband,  and his arch political rival Babush Monserrate (who joined Goa Forward party and is officially with the ruling alliance), becoming a Chairman of a newly formed Planning and Development Authority, which will decide on land use in his area

For the BJP therefore, the first electoral battle is less than two years away, when the two Lok Sabha seats will have to be contested. South Goa will not be a cakewalk by any stretch of imagination. In fact it needs Goa Forward to win back the minorities and that itself is a challenge for Goa Forward. In addition, if the OBCs and the STs are not completely with the BJP in areas like Canacona and Sanguem, it will add to the pressure. And in North Goa, the debris of the fallen heavyweights still lies on the political landscape. It is here that the OBCs have to be won back for the North Goa seat to be retained.

At another level it also needs to consolidate and give confidence to some of its defeated backward caste MLAs, apart from the heavy weights, like Kiran Khandolkar. It also needs to work with some prominent members of the community like Deepak Naik, Mormugao Municipal Council Chairperson, Navnath Naik, South Goa Zilla Parishad Chairperson and others, to work on the larger project of consolidation and empowerment, even if it is through the narrow prism of jobs and positions.

Typically, one would argue that electoral politics should be determined by the governments overall performance and the health and wealth of the State. But wisdom and pragmatism dictates that equations such as caste have to be not just taken into account but dealt with as a focused poll strategy. With 4.5 lakh OBC votes in this bank, this isn’t trivial, especially in a political climate where the race will be tight and the tipping point is either reached or missed narrowly. The margin of error is therefore very limited and therefore backward could well be the only way forward for the BJP.