Many years ago, the Indian cricket team had the spin quartret of Bedi, Prasanna, Venkatraghavan and Chandrashekar who caught batsmen in a complete web as India won matches after matches. The last named Chandrashekhar was polio stricken and did not himself know the kind of ball he was going to deliver. But his deliveries produced dramatic results.
In a different era, in a different field there is one politician who himself doesn’t quite know the results of his next move, but does manage to deliver telling results for himself. He has no party, no loyalty, no affiliation and runs on the single minded burning political ambition of power at all costs, at any cost.
His politics defies logic, where friends and foes are just journeymen of passage. So when he decided to quit the St Cruz seat, and his party membership and contest the Panjim by-election, purists and pundits gawked. And the skeptics grinned. There are no answers to the most fundamental questions. Why will an MLA decide to quit in the middle of his term and contest by-elections from another seat, which he may well lose thereby going out of the assembly. And even if some think that his presence might help bi-furcate Congress votes, giving an edge to the BJP, thereby helping him come close to the BJP and get protection from legal troubles, the truth is that Monseratte doesn’t really contest elections to come third.
Of course there are votaries of clean corruption free politics who feel that Monseratte is an anathema to the system. But it is the same system that has voted him to power whenever he has contested, on any party ticket. He has won in Taleigao and controlled Panjim through the Corporation of the City of Panjim (CCP) and even with Manohar Parrikar as the Chief Minister and MLA of Panjim, he managed to get his panel elected and have the current Mayor Surendra Furtado elected as Mayor. In an irony, that is normal for Monserrate, Furtado may well be his rival candidate in the Panjim by elections.
When it comes to real politics, there is a constituency that does not necessarily get swayed by opinion builders, makers or for that matter even newspapers. Babush Monserrate is a master of that universe. To them he has always been the go to guy, who may build castles including his own but will not let their huts go down. To woo the more urbane constituency, Monseratte’s life-long ambition has been to become the Urban Development minister, get central funds for the development of Panjim and seal his political place here for good. The Congress, a party Monserrate has been associated with more than any other –with the tacit understanding with Manohar Parrikar- has never allowed that to happen. His next ambition has been to be Panjim MLA. Taleigao and St Cruz are sideshows. For Monserrate, Panjim is a big deal.
It’s unbelievable but true. At heart Monserrate is still a boy who loves his toys. Panjim for him is that high-end Audi car or a Lamborgini which no one has. He wants Panjim in his kitty, as a trophy on the mantle- piece, and he sees this as a big chance, with Manohar Parrikar not being there. In Monserrate’s mind, there can be none other than him, when Parrikar leaves, and he doesn’t need either the Congress nor the BJP to say this.
While the BJP hopes that the gratitude factor will make any BJP nominee win from Panjim post Mr Parrikar, to a new generation of impatient young voters, these elections are far removed from the Ramayana, when Bharat ruled Ayodhya keeping Ram’s slippers in front of his throne. Panjim’s voters may need deliverance from the issues Panjim faces. If Monseratte can ride this sentiment and take the elections beyond gratitude and affection for Manohar Parrikar, he has a serious chance of upsetting the applecart.
But he is nowhere near any of that yet. He is at the base of a mountain which he is sure he can climb and he has the money and other powers to pull this through. In fact he may have more resources to fight these elections than even the official Congress nominee. Panjimites may not yet know who they want but Monserrate will mean business, in an election that was otherwise clearly swinging BJP’s way.
