The resounding victory of the Aam Aadmi Party in Delhi has sent several messages to the ruling dispensation at the Centre and two of which stand out – one, never to take the electorate for granted and the other, to stay grounded and rooted to the reasons why you were elected in the first place. India does not take time to uninstall the idols that they had so ceremoniously put on a pedestal just a few months earlier.
Elections are all about promises and how one party can convince the electorate that they can deliver on their promises. As a vibrant democracy, Indians seldom get taken for a ride by their elected representatives. And more often than not, the choices made by them are out of sheer lack of choices.
The result for the Panjim assembly by-election is just out and the BJP candidate Sidharth Kunkolienker has won comfortably. It helped his case that the former chief minister of Goa and now India’s Defence Minister publicly campaigned for his long time confidante. Parrikar even went to the extent of saying that with one vote, you can get two people – himself and Kunkolienker. Thus cementing the doubt that the newly elected Panjim MLA is indeed a proxy of his one-time master.
Many considered the Panjim by-election as a referendum on Manohar Parrikar. It would have been good if that was the case. At least there may have been some course correction on the BJP’s part. But what the polls did was to hammer another nail in the coffin of the Congress party in Goa.
In Panjim, the complete absence of the Congress Party was evident on the ground level.
Surendra Furtado, the Congress nominee was trudging it out alone, and his case wasn’t strengthened by his own partyman, Babush Monseratte siding with the BJP candidate.
Another eye opener was the fact the more than 300 people in Panjim voted for ‘none of the above’ (NOTA) and this block stood 4th in the pecking order.
I personally see the NOTA votes as a very significant political signal. This shows that a considerable amount of voters are tired of the politicking of the ‘professional’ political parties. It is perhaps time for Goa to see an emergence of a new alternative. A party with a difference.
How should this political outfit look? Unlike the existing political parties. The new outfit (and my gut feeling tells me that there will be a challenge thrown at the incumbent BJP from an all new political source) has to talk the language of the common man. It should take serious issues from Goa and build an organization from the lowest level. It should function as the custodian of people’s aspirations. And the party has to have the moral high ground to question Parrikar and the BJP.
