22 January,2012

The BJP needs to win hearts in Salcete
In the best of times Salcete is a difficult bastion to conquer. But for the BJP, it will hardly ever get better than this. In an election where the goalposts are changing, honesty, performance and delivery will hopefully be the highlights the voter will look for in the CV of its candidates.
The Congress has just one great advantage. It’s a veteran candidate for the job it has always secured because the “minority” has its presence in the majority of Salcete. More importantly this minority has, far from being appeased, has actually been angered by the BJP in the past. The BJP and Manohar Parrikar realise that if inroads into Salcete can’t be made now, when the humungous corruption of the Congress government has opened BJP’s doors, it perhaps never will. But the BJP needs to do much more than be just a party which is standing in line when the voter is fed up with the Congress. The Salcete voter is a difficult species. But it’s also an intelligent species. It will not go for the next available when their tired and tested has failed. The next available needs to win trust and friendship and hospitable as the xaxtikars, mat well be, trust is a pyramid which is not easy to climb and is kept at a far greater height than just friendship.
The BJP s biggest challenge is to convince those who will not be convinced that Manohar Parrikar cannot and will not treat Catholics with the dignity and respect that they should naturally get like anyone else should. His problem is that the majority of peoples in Salcete do not ask the Congress to prove its trust and royalty. It is almost a given. To the BJP they will ask and wait for answers and with every question comes the memory of Manohar Parrikars past rule when a combination of Parrikars past arrogance and an unfortunate series of circumstances, made Catholics resent and rage the BJP.
Times have changed and many in Salcete will admit – albeit cautiously-that times indeed have. Whether this is indeed true or not, what has changed is the BJP’s earlier complacency that they are here to stay has gone. The difference between then and now is that the BJP understands that it is fallible. Decisions which adversely affect the people of Salcette-especially the Catholics- may cause its downfall. If for nothing else the BJP’s need to govern is the best chance that it will undo its mistakes of the past. However, giving it a certificate of good behaviour will take time.
The BJPs is indeed trying. It plans to offer tickets to eight Catholic candidates, Manohar Parrikar began his jansampark yatra by apologising for proposing to cancel the Good Friday holiday and reached out to them during a lengthy meeting at Borda as soon as he entered Salcete. This is step one where he has reached out to the mind. It is the heart which will be the clincher.
The BJP has hope because the Congress might lose hope if the frustration of the corruption affected people reach the electronic voting machine. If the BJP plays its cards right and intelligently stands back and supports non congress candidates without fielding their own, their first baby steps into Salcette may well be initiated. Mission Salcete, as of today is still improbable but not at all impossible. This itself is an achievement.