This seems to be the case in many States including Goa.
Many State and regional leaders have to surrender their right to choose the candidates to their high command as soon as elections approach. Indeed, the discussions are held with the main leaders of the party but the final decision is made by the high command anyway.
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Congress is yet to declare a candidate while there are only 57 more days left for Goa to go to the polls. BJP has declared Shripad Naik as its North Goa candidate but this decision too was made by Central Selection Committee. In fact, many attempts were made to reduce Naik’s importance before giving him candidacy with Dayanand Sopte suggesting senior leader like Naik to retire from the politics and guide the party instead.
Or, not taking Naik into confidence during the organisation of National Games despite him being the member of Goa Olympic Association was also a way to ignore and demotivate the BJP stalwart. Similar scenes were observed during PM Modi’s visit to Goa during the procession at Fatorda Stadium where Naik, who is a union minister, was not given space in chariot during the march. However, in the end, BJP’s central leadership granted candidacy to Naik.
The decision to allow eight Congress MLAs to enter the party despite having majority government in the State was also decided by Centre without taking regional leadership’s opinion seriously. And now, it’s the Centre who will decide the South Goa candidate as well. In fact, the BJP’s State head had to agree on Tuesday that for the party, it’s the symbol which is important and not the candidate be it a man or a woman. BJP’s State leadership had suggested some names for South Goa but Centre then asked for the names of women candidates.
Although some women candidates were suggested to the high command, no decision was taken till late Tuesday evening.
Goa BJP leaders are left with no other option than to state that they are waiting for the decision to be made by Central Selection Committee. The situation is no different in the States which are ruled by the saffron party where party’s operations are majorly handled by the Central leaders. Whether it is Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra or Haryana, sometimes even the regional leaders are unaware about who is going to enter the party tomorrow.
BJP’s own leaders discreetly have agreed to the fact that all major decisions be it about joining the party, forging an alliance or resigning as a minister, are taken by the Centre. For example in neighbouring Sindhudurg, the decision to bring Narayan Rane into the BJP was taken by party’s Central leadership and the regional party workers were told to ‘adjust’ with Rane.
Congress is a university in its own when it comes to lack of decentralisation of powers. As a matter of fact, the word high-command is traditionally linked with Congress which is known to not take any decisions without it. Even when Narayan Rane left Shiv Sena to join Congress, the regional leaders were told to ‘adjust’ with Rane by the so called high-command.
Some Congress leaders privately admit that despite spending days in Delhi, it is still difficult to get in touch with the party’s senior leaders. Many Congress stalwarts left the party over the last few weeks due to lack of democracy within the party.
Although Congress tried its best to erase these allegations by electing Mallikarjun Kharge as the party’s national head, the decisions are still largely taken by the Gandhi family. In short, BJP’s political canvas is not different than the Congress’.
The Central leadership by now has learnt that it can easily handle the situations in smaller States like Goa no matter the difficulty level and so, it does not matter to BJP’s Central leadership whether the candidate will be announced today or after few days.
