Political leaders who parted ways with MGP from Pratapsing Rane to Ravi Naik; and Manohar Parrikar pay obeisance to Bandodkar hoping that his mass political appeal rubs off on them.
For a man, who rose from humble beginnings, to “stray into politics” – to use his own words, and become its tallest leader for a decade was quite an achievement. Bandodkar, the accidental MGP chief minister, was preferred over P P Shirodkar, for his supposedly better relations with all communities. Though the MGP essentially had a Maharashtra based Brahmin think tank consisting of Nath Pai, NG Gore, SM Joshi etc, it was Bandodkar’s charismatic leadership, his ability to galvanise and articulate the bahujan samaj – a vast conglomeration of non Saraswat castes, the backing of the Maharashtra Congress and a well organized propaganda unit which won the 1963 elections. This however is not to discount the contributions of other MGP leaders.
Despite the periodic Bhandari and other revolts against Bandodkar, who increasingly made the MGP his household party, the MGP despite its failure to improve the lot of its rural New Conquest mass-base, became a rallying point of the middle and lower caste/class Hindus. After the integration with India, MGP gave them hope to tide over hardships they faced under the colonial rule where Saraswat Brahmins and Christians were seen as supporters of the regime. Therefore to escape this perceived domination, post Liberation, the masses sided with the MGP’s historic blunder of attempting to merge Goa with Maharashtra.
But as the political and social circumstances changed and with the untimely death of Bandodkar on August 12, 1973, a young Shashikala Kakodkar could not change the ‘Merger-Marathi’ Bandodkar script, hardly realising that the masses and her partymen were restless. The party therefore lost power due to simmering allegations of corruption, churning of social and environmental movements and MGP failure to set a new agenda for Goa. After 1979, the MGP failed to find a new leadership and agenda, to cobble up a majority government. However, its most tragic blunder was its grand alliance with the BJP-Shiv Sena in 1994. Though essentially a softer milder Hindu party, emergence of a vibrant national party in Goa in1980 – the Congress, subsequent party infighting, failure to retain its mass base and the emergence of the rightwing BJP on the national stage, marginalized the MGP. Since 1994 the BJP has successfully eaten into the MGP base with a much harder Hindu ideology. Its rise has since the converse fall of MGP. Parrikar, by being seen with Shashikala Kakodkar at Marathi agitations and using symbolism like erecting the Bandodkar statue, has successfully appropriated the MGP mass base and managed to sideline Bhandari leaders like Vishnu Waghs and Sripad Naiks.
But the greatest irony of the formerly bahujan-anti Saraswat MGP, has been that the Shashikalas, the Khalaps, the Sirsats, the Ravis, etc have all conceded the party leadership to come to rest with the Saraswats – Ramkrishna and Deepak Dhavalikar, possibly to the greatest horror of Dayanand Bandodkar. The party has been reduced to an independent like status with just 3 MLAs. The Dhavalikars have today through shrewd covert manipulations purged the party of its bahujan leadership, its all inclusive, eclectic, plural party-type to make it a B team of either the BJP, the Ram Sene and Sanathan Sanstha. Electorally, though the MGP today is more redundant –with the BJP strong enough not to need its support—than ever before. It appears that with the Dhavalikars spitting venom on certain aspects of Goan culture and its communal harmony and their attempts to outdo BJP on Hindutva and bring in a regimented society, they may certainly have the honour of burying the bahujan MGP, along with themselves.
