Fifty five years after the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party emerged onto the Goan political scene, looking at a brief future for itself, seeking to exist only until it achieved its goal of merging the newly-liberated territory of Goa with Maharashtra, the party plows on in the State, sweeping aside speculation of its merger with the Bharatiya Janata Party as rumours, asserting that it will keep the identity of the party alive.
From a party that, when it was birthed, had a one point agenda of seeking the merger of Goa with Maharashtra, that would effectively end the identity of Goa, to now seeking to stay relevant in the State, the MGP has travelled a long course that would have been inconceivable to the party’s founding fathers. The fact that over the past days the party has had to deny any merger moves as rumours, only indicates that there could have been discussions within the party on this possibility. Having set merger aside, the party is now planning its foundation day function, and also claims that it is ready to face the Lok Sabha polls and Assembly elections, should the latter happen earlier than due, and fight the polls alone.
That may not be good news for the BJP that would not want a split in the vote, that could hurt its electoral prospects, especially at the Lok Sabha polls, where every seat will count. But, at the current point of time it does not be politically expedient for the MGP to merge with any other party. If the MGP were to cease to exist by merging with the BJP, not only would it have ended the identity of the party and frozen the lion symbol in the State, it could also weaken the bargaining power of its members in the fluid post-poll alliance talks that have been the hallmark of Goan politics the past few decades. MGP, though it may have been reduced in strength, has managed to cling on to power by aligning itself to whichever party has been able to form a government in the State. A merger, however, would benefit BJP as the possibility of a vote split would be greatly reduced, bringing into the party kitty a larger number of seats.
MGP has managed to survive over the decades, when UGP did not or a UGDP, that came in later, struggles to stay afloat in the same choppy political waters. It’s not the ideology, as winners on the lion symbol have quit the party and joined other political parties and movements. It is not a dedicated voter base, as the seats the party has won in recent years have swung the other way too, except for Madkai that has steadfastly remained loyal to the lion. Or perhaps it is the constituency’s electorate’s dedication to the Dhavalikar family that has kept the party winning from here consistently.
The MGP today has come to be associated with the Dhavalikars who hold the reigns of the party in present times. One brother heads the organisation, the other the legislature wing, leading to one of them to quip that if the Dhavalikars are there they will keep the identity of the party alive. But MGP needs to shed the family image and go beyond to bring into its embrace a wider section of the people, if it is to survive for a longer period.
For the MGP, retaining its identity is more important. Granted, that the identity that the party stresses on will be lost, though the relevance of this identity to the idea of a Goan identity has long been missing mainly due to its nomenclature, for the word Maharashtrawadi is incongruous to the Goan identity. And that’s what the party needs to work on – shedding that image – rather than merger for short political gains.
