After keeping the State in suspense for 11 full days on who would be leading the government for the next five years, the Bharatiya Janata Party delivered no surprise and the Sanquelim MLA Dr Pramod Sawant, the outgoing chief minister, was re-elected as the leader of the party’s Legislature wing. Repeatedly, prior to the polls, it had been announced that the elections would be fought under Sawant’s leadership. He being now selected as leader shows there has been no deviation from that, and when the party’s MLAs finally met to choose the leader, they were essentially formalising decision taken at the highest levels of the party. The protracted meeting, however, exposed the fact that there are fissures in the State BJP and that these had to be bridged within the closed doors of the office before the choice of chief minister could be made public.
Sawant, MLA for the third consecutive term, has won by a very thin margin from Sanquelim. He would have had hoped for a bigger win that would reassure him of the trust of his constituency, but as a major consolation there was another unexpected victory for him, as it was under his stewardship of the government that the Bharatiya Janata Party returned with 20 MLAs in the 40-member Assembly, a feat that not many had believed achievable. It may not give the party the simple majority in the House and they would have to depend on regional parties and Independents, but it puts them in a position of command when leading the government.
There are challenges of governance and delivery that Sawant will have to handle as the party has promised much in the manifesto, but the bigger challenge would possibly be political – in appeasing his colleagues in the Assembly and the cabinet. The long delay in announcing the chief minister is one indication that his competitors in the party will be waiting to move in at the first sign of indecisiveness. He will have to keep that in mind. However, Sawant has a comfortable majority with the allies and Independents in the government playing a limited role, unlike the time three years ago when he had taken over and the government was dependent on the allies to muster a majority, until four months later when the exodus from the Congress gave the BJP a huge majority in the Assembly.
In his second stint as chief minister, Sawant brings with him the experience of having handled a government. In 2019 he came to occupy the chief ministerial position from the office of the Speaker. He had no prior familiarity of government work or handling the administration. He now has three years worth of experience, some of it under very trying circumstances especially during the pandemic. Of course, the mishandling of the second wave and the deaths from the COVID-19 virus are a red mark against his performance and he will have to work much harder to improve upon that performance. The electorate gave him the numbers in the Assembly, and the party has reposed its faith in him. He now has to deliver.
The big advantage for Sawant now, and one he has to build upon to give Goa the governance it deserves, is that he has been given the opportunity not out of a lack of choice of CM hopefuls, but that he has emerged as the first among a number of equals, some senior to him in the Assembly. This in itself conveys that the central leadership has faith in him and should strengthen his position as the head of the government. He will be occupying the position of chief minister in his own right as leader. His task, therefore, is cut out for him – deliver and demonstrate that the faith in his leadership has been well reposed.
