In an unusual turn of events, despite the Bharatiya Janata Party splitting the MGP and dropping its MLA as dy chief minister, neither has MGP broken away from the alliance, nor has BJP shed this appendage that it has been carrying in every government that it has formed in Goa. Starting as the junior partner in the 1994 State Assembly elections in an alliance with the MGP, the BJP then went on to become the senior partner of this natural alliance between the two parties given the affinity in ideology and in 2019 has come to the most severe of disagreements that has taken a dramatic twist.
Goa has seen many defections. They have happened when the sun was shining in the sky and after sundown, even late in the night, but this post-midnight opening of the Speaker’s office to authorise a defection and merger of a party into another is a first. While the rest of Goa slept, and even newspapers had been put to bed, some of the State’s lawmakers were awake, changing sides by taking advantage of the anti-defection law that allows two-thirds of the MLAs of a party to break away and merge with another. What transpired during the night may have legal sanction as the MLAs who quit meet the required strength as mandated by the law, but does this have moral sanction?
Goa is not new to defections. Sadly, it has been plagued by this malaise throughout its democratic history since Liberation. The unfortunate bit of this is that the electorate has regularly returned defectors to the House, which gives the MLAs the courage to switch sides midway through an Assembly term and seek re-election. In the current case, the law protects the two former MGP MLAs from facing the electorate again, but there are two by-elections scheduled next month brought about by defections to the BJP. Should we see both the former MLAs being re-elected, this would amount to the electorate endorsing the defections. So, should only defectors be censured for changing sides, with no responsibility placed on the people who vote for them again and again?
A lion mauled does not slink away from the battlefield. It returns with a vengeance. And that is exactly what MGP is doing by entering the ring in the Lok Sabha elections, and could be fielding its strongest possible candidates – Ramkrishna (Sudin) Dhavalikar himself in South Goa and Naresh Sawal in North Goa. The battle lines for the Lok Sabha elections are being redrawn in the State as the lion preps itself for another loud roar. The threat of filing a disqualification petition against its two former members who split, will not disturb the BJP as much as the decision of the MGP to contest the Lok Sabha elections will. MGP has taken the fight to a different and far wider battleground, possibly even wrested the initiative in the next battle, where it has the potential to damage the BJP’s hopes and plans of retaining the two Parliamentary seats from the State.
MGP stands bruised at the moment, but in the past the party has risen from such blows. It may not return to form a government but it somehow gets itself enough of seats to play the role of kingmaker. The by-elections are going to be the test, whether it can increase its strength in the Assembly. Even a single seat for the regional party in the by-elections could swing the political mood in its favour. It is not over for MGP, the lion preps to roar again, but the scar of defections will forever stain Goa.
