The Congress may have the PCC chief as its appointed leader but that doesn’t stop all former Chief Ministers from claiming leadership as a matter of right. The BJP has picked the incumbent Chief Minister to lead its campaign, but this is as things stand now. The final call will be taken inside the war room at the eleventh hour, the Aam Aadmi Party, has begun releasing names of candidates ranging from the little known to the unknown but that’s always been its claim to fame and it is on claims alone that it rides.
The big ask therefore is where is the leadership? Are there unquestionable leaders who will ride into the sunset with their parties? From Jack Sequeira to Dayanand Bandodkar to Sashilaka Kakodkar to Pratapsingh Rane and Manohar Parrikar, Goa has voted for the captain. Goans, traditionally need to know who is steering their ship and while we have had mini term and midterm Chief Ministers, whose tenures have been shorter than a trek to the Himalayas, most did not ride to power on a popular mandate but were creatures of manipulation.
The 2012 elections were not about the BJP. It was about Manohar Parrikar. It must be remembered that for close to 16 years, the BJP hasn’t had to face the leadership question with every election being fought under one man. It was believed that if he couldn’t fix it, no one could. Now for the first time in sixteen years, the leadership has been given to the sitting Chief Minister and not to a mass leader who will single handedly lead the party to power, on his personal strength alone. This has forced Chief Minister Parsekar to course correct, tweak responses on critical issues like the Medium of Instruction and be over dependent on an extremely ambitious MGP, to get at least 60% of the number of seats they got. And he has ambitious leaders from neighbouring constituencies snapping at his heals, in Rajendra Arlekar and Francis D’Souza.
The Congress is fighting these elections only on paper. There are five Congress parties in the fray each under a local satrap – Ravi Naik, Vishwajeet Rane, Francisco Sardinha and Digambar Kamat, besides of course the GPCC president Luizinho Faleiro. Barring Faleiro, each is looking at a mini election in their backyard where they can control at least two MLAs. Kamat has gone a step further. He is working behind the scenes to get Churchill Alemao and Babush Monserrate into the party so that they can back him internally should the occasion arise when the Congress needs to chose a Chief Minister. Vishwajeet Rane wants to secure Poriem, Valpoi and Mayem for himself and it is only when nominations are filed, will we know what Junior Rane’s formal affiliations will be. Meanwhile the Ravi Naik camp has a misplaced sense of dejavu. It actually believes that their leader’s time has returned by rotation, and winning Ponda will embark Naik on the road to power in Porvorim. Meanwhile Francisco Sardinha, by virtue of we don’t know what, is singing “Forever Young” or “18 till I die” and wants to hang in there inspite of his party having his bête noire, Alexio Reginaldo Lourenco firmly in the saddle. So why does Francisco Sardina want to contest? To be Chief Minister silly.
And finally we come to the Aam Aadmi Party which won Delhi riding on Aevind Kejriwal but is struggling to find a pivot around which the party can run here. Officer turned neta, Elvis Gomes, to be honest and absolutely fair, isn’t quite the face they are actually looking for but are happy to kick-start with him. After people like Oscar Rebello declared and made a virtue out of it, that family and profession came before politics, AAP may even be forced to “outsource” its main face.
All parties are facing a crisis of leadership and having many leaders doesn’t solve this logjam. At times, that is the problem. The real “tall” leader Goa needs is light years away.
