Much as GPCC president Luizinho Faleiro might want to put structure and organisation back into a party with no rules, boundaries and discipline, there will be no stopping loose cannons like Babush Monserrate, who will take all decisions on their own, scoff at the party and yet continue to remain as party MLAs because the Congress just cannot afford to lose MLAs by sacking them from the party.
The same Babush Monseratte, who two weeks ago said that even God couldn’t stop him from contesting the Panjim elections, now says that two years would have been too short a time for him to deliver. “I can assure you I’ll be there next time”, he told Herald.
What happens next time will depend entirely on the flavour and the deal of the season. Let’s figure what happened this time round. There is no ambiguity on at least one issue. Babush Monseratte the Congress MLA of St Cruz is not – and we repeat NOT – going to support Surendra Furtado the Congress candidate for the Panjim by election. So even if the GPCC is trying, it should dispel its clearly mistaken notion that Monserrate had a sudden change of heart and dropped his plans for the sake of the nation, state and party, none of which inspires his political decision making. On the contrary, Monserrate officially claims to be neutral, but has made a commitment, at least to himself that he will not allow Surendra Furtado, named as the Congress candidate, to win. And he said as much to Herald.
So what really was the bluster of him wanting to contest the Panjim by elections, and sending ripples through St Cruz where hopefuls started preparations, thinking Babush Monserrate will have to vacate the St Cruz seat? The St Cruz MLA had even announced that he would begin his campaign on December 8, on the day of the local feast.
It was clear the Monserrate was weighing his options, testing the waters to see what he could extract for himself. His first step was going over the top about his intentions to contest and telling Herald ‘Even a chaprasi from the BJP will win if I do not contest” (He later corrected that word to “peon”, which means the same but seems less insulting in English). His presence did create enough discomfiture among the BJP because there was one section which felt that even in a three-way situation, the BJP would get affected because the minority votes may have consolidated in Monserrate’s favour – albeit with a heavy heart – to ensure that the BJP didn’t win, in the light of the increasing communal polarisation that is being witnessed nationally.
Mr Furtado though feels that he will secure votes across segments and communities and the confidence is the very least that he can and should go into the ring with. But that is a separate story. What has happened as a sideshow is that both the BJP and Monserrate may have worked out a very cozy deal where Monserrate gets insulated against administrative and legal attacks in the form of many cases and investigations against him and the BJP in turn gains from a neutral Monserrate at the very least, if not an openly supportive one, in the Panjim by-polls.
This whiff of a deal is emanating because, even by Monserrate’s standards this is an O turn (which is an even more complete about than a U turn) of pristine nature where everything said two weeks ago stands on its head. The supposed reasoning that if he got elected, he would hardly have time to deliver, was valid when he said even God couldn’t stop him from contesting. Perhaps former Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar, emerged as a Greater God, prompted by a high profile legal apostle of the Greater God, to whom Monserrate in indebted to for helping him out in several of his legal and other messes. And the Greater God did what God couldn’t have done.
Coming back to the broader picture, politics in Goa, or at least Congress politics, is still subservient to the actions, desires and decisions of its powerful local satraps who head personal organisations and play by their own rules and manifestos.
