SATURDAY, APRIL 27, 2024
Alexandre Moniz Barbosa
As Goa goes out to elect a new government in five weeks from now, there is one question that perhaps needs to be asked and that is how much sense does it make for the elections to be held on party lines. While this may sound a tad radical, as India’s democracy is based on party politics, what has occurred in the past five years and more especially in recent weeks and days, justifies asking this question. The current term of the Legislative Assembly has perhaps been unlike any of the past. Goa has had a decade of instability when governments were overthrown by MLAs defecting, but this term will go down as one of stability – the change in government occuring due to the death of the chief minister – but there has been a string of MLAs changing sides throughout the five years that casts a question mark on ideology and political party loyalty.
Defections by MLAs have been the hallmark of this Assembly and even as the term comes to an end, this has not entirely stopped. It has just taken a different turn. In recent weeks, seven persons have resigned their membership of the Legislative Assembly and one other has merged with another party. With the resignations the effective strength of the Assembly has been reduced to 33, and if there are more MLAs changing parties, which cannot be ruled out, the Assembly strength could be further reduced before the end of the term. In a sad way, these resignations could not have been a more fitting end to a term that saw defections throughout, but Goa definitely deserves better than politicians who, to use a cliche, only hop, skip and jump for their survival.
These recent seven resignations, one merger and the past 12 defections, three resignations and re-election of MLAs total to 23 MLAs, which is over 55 per cent of the strength of the Assembly, having changed their allegiance during the term. Interesting to see these in detail so as to recapture what all has taken place during the past almost five years. Vishwajit Rane, Subhash Shirodkar, Dayanand Sopte resigned from the Congress and got re-elected as BJP MLAs. Manohar (Babu) Ajgaonkar and Deepak Pauskar split from the MGP and merged with the BJP. Chandrakant (Babu) Kavlekar, Felipe Nery Rodrigues, Atanasio Monserrate, Jennifer Monserrate, Francis Silveria, Tony Fernades, Isidore Fernandes, Clafasio Dias, Wilfred D’Sa and Nilkanth Harlankar split the Congress and merged with the BJP. Luizinho Faleiro, Ravi Naik and Aleixo Reginaldo Lourenco resigned from the Congress and joined other parties but have not got elected as the term is coming to an end. Similarly Rohan Khaunte an Independent, Alina Saldanha and Carlos Almeida of the BJP and Jayesh Salgaonkar of the Goa Forward Party resigned and also joined other parties and will possibly be seeking re-election in 2022. Churchill Alemao the lone Nationalist Congress Party MLA changed sides when he ‘merged’ with the Trinamool Congress, though this party does not have a legislative wing.
What Goa has experienced since the 2017 elections is the institution of a very disturbing political culture that if accepted without complaints by the electorate could see a further increase that is not in the interest of the people. Defections, horse-trading are the result of a complete lack of political ideology in the politicians, for whom the most important aspect is self and not the State or their constituents. Mid-term defections are passed off as for development of the constituency. The end-of-term resignations are reasoned as for strengthening a particular political party or the MLA having realised that the party he is representing was not the best. Yet, one thing is clear, the pre-poll changes in the Assembly now clearly indicate that a majority of the politicians – over 50 per cent – elected five years ago have no lasting allegiance to any party or ideology, but are self-seeking, looking only at furthering their own political careers.
Defections create various problems, but what is mainly at stake is the credibility of the politicians who have changed sides. Can they be trusted to stay true to the party they have now chosen? The question of loyalty to a party gets aggravated when voters somehow ignore the changing of colours by politicians and bring them back to power, sometimes just months later, as occurred in Goa with three MLAs in the current term. While academics, political observers and the media my denounce defections, the people appear to have a very different idea of what to do with defecting politicians. Rather simply, they bring them back to power, no matter the party affiliation. Which brings us back to the question posed at the start of column: should elections be held on party lines?
Goa’s politics of the past five years could well be the subject for academic research as what occurred in these past months has changed the known definition of horse trading. Defections usually hit the weaker and smaller parties as MLAs choose to jump ship to the larger party. This theory has been completely overturned in Goa, with the largest party Congress turning out to be the main loser in the defection game and BJP, which came second in the election, gaining instrength. In the first half of the term the regional parties that aligned with the BJP were not targetted, but this changed later. At the fag end of the term, as Congress continued to lose MLAs, BJP also suffered similarly, and new entrant in the State – Trinamool Congress – was the biggest gainer, with and Aam Aadmi Party coming a close second. In the February 14 elections, all parties in Goa will be serving up a candidate list made up of individuals who have spent time in various other parties. If politicians have no sense of belonging to a party, why choose parties? Should the vote go to individuals instead?
Democracy was meant to bring persons believeing in a particular ideology together and not just those wanting power to band together. The latter is what constant defections has reduced politics in Goa to – a power game. This game results in selfish interests being put up before the good of the State and the people. Politics was not meant to be practiced in that manner. It was service to the nation before self. That has changed.
Alexandre Moniz Barbosa is Editor, Herald. He tweets at @monizbarbosa
