Twenty-one months after the regional party was unceremoniously dropped from the Goa government with its three MLAs losing their ministerial berths, the party formally wrote to the chairperson of the NDA announcing its withdrawal from the alliance.
Goa Forward Party quitting the NDA does not in any manner affect the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the Centre or that of Chief Minister Dr Pramod Sawant in Goa. The regional party does not have any Members of Parliament in the Lok Sabha, and in the State Assembly its three MLAs were already seated in the opposition benches since July 2019. This is but a gesture on the part of the Goa Forward Party of cutting ties to make its more acceptable to the voters of Margao where it is contesting the local civic elections in tandem with two MLAs of the Congress party. Interestingly, the disassociation with the NDA came after civil society groups challenged the Goa Forward Party to break its links with the NDA.
If you enjoyed reading this article, you can help support our journalism by adding OHeraldo as a preferred source.
Now that it has put that part of its history behind it, Goa Forward Party is looking to build new alliances. There is of course next year’s State Legislative elections that are playing on the Goa Forward Party mind and Vijai Sardesai, the party president, who announced the withdrawal of the Goa Forward Party from the NDA, also made it clear that his party was ready and willing to enter into an alliance with the Congress for the 2022 State Legislative Assembly polls. So does that mean there will be a radical shift for the party from the National Democratic Alliance to the United Progressive Alliance?
This is not the first time that such a statement of an alliance with Congress has been made, and Sardesai has admitted that he has been attempting to form this alliance for the past months. It is, however, with the party having delinked from the NDA, that the moves of opposition unity attain a different significance, especially with the tie-up already in place for the Margao Municipal Council polls.
How Congress responds to this unity initiative remains to be seen. The national party is on record stating that it will fight the 2022 polls alone and not in alliance. But besides that, Congress is still smarting from the Goa Forward Party turning its back on the national party and aligning with the BJP in 2017 after the results of the Assembly polls. Goa Forward Party, which was seen as a natural ally of the Congress, was expected to join with the Congress to form a government. The biggest surprise of the post election negotiations was Goa Forward Party rushing to join hands with the Bharatiya Janata Party. At that time, its then party president Prabhakar Timble had tendered his resignation from the party in protest of the Goa Forward Party decision to align with the Bharatiya Janata Party.
However, the Bharatiya Janata Party is still on the Goa Forward Party mind. For the second time this week, the question of Parrikar’s legacy has been brought up in political circles. Two days after the Aam Aadmi Party very suddenly said it can fulfill the vision of Parrikar, Goa Forward Party said that there is no Parrikar legacy left. Rather than legacies, all the parties would do better to concentrate on what the State needs. If Goa Forward Party, as its names suggests, is forward looking, then it should forget the legacies that others have left and draw a roadmap for the future of Goa. If Goa Forward Party can state that there will be no looking back at the NDA, it can also not look back at the legacies of other politicians, but work to leave one of its own.
