Revenge may be a dish served cold but in the political cauldron which is cooking post the serious split between the Goa RSS and the parent body, and by extension, the ruling BJP, the revenge dish is extremely tempting for all other non-BJP parties. BBSM’s revenge is just the dish the doctor ordered, for a fresh lease of hope (and not a fresh lease of life) to parties like Goa Forward and AAP.
The bloodletting within the Sangh Parivar which led to the sacking of Goa’s RSS head Subhash Velingkar, has actually brought to light a bit of the desperation among non-Congress, non-BJP parties, which are rubbing their hands in glee, that the “split in votes” politics that the BJP was banking on to win the next elections has come back to worry the parivar, in a manner they least expected to.
What is very significant also is that the ideology and principles of the BBSM, on the issue of education in the mother tongue, may not quite come in the way of its immediate priority of defeating BJP candidates in the 2017 elections. If this strategy of theirs leads to parties or formations whose beliefs are anti-thetical to the BBSM’s, benefitting in some seats, it doesn’t matter to the BBSM at all, since its limited objective is to damage the BJP, not push a political agenda with other parties. And to stretch this argument further, the beneficiary of the BBSM’s revenge dish could even be the Congress, something which was absolutely unthinkable till now.
For the non-BJP parties, there is treasure in every particle of the political debris, post the BBSM-BJP fallout. And neither the Goa Forward nor the AAP are wedded to any ideological zeal, with both trying their best to acquire resources (read candidates) from anywhere. So from senior journalists, to BJP workers, BJP MLAs and veteran organisation leaders of the BJP to those in the social space, have pretty much approached by AAP’s “talent hunting scouts”.
Of course it will be premature to write the epitaph of the BJP yet because none of the opposition parties have managed to set up a base of fresh credible candidates. Moreover, the advantage of a divided opposition is still the BJP’s only silver lining, coupled with the fact that the MGP is still an ally. Of course the nature of a silver lining is the backdrop of dark clouds and the clouds here is the very hard, bordering on unreasonable, bargain, the MGP will try to strike, during seat sharing talks with the BJP.
The opposition to the BJP however must realise this, and realise this well, that they need to project themselves as credible alternatives, with a clear stand on contentious issues and a road map for economic growth, jobs and sustainable tourism. But this kind of a road map is less evident while what is visible are frantic calculations to see how the BBSM-BJP split will play out in certain constituencies. These elections, sadly, cannot be fought be fought with calculators but calculations of the kind that will pay dividends to the common man of Goa across a five year period.
The calculation that Goa wants to see, is not a numbers game that will bring a party to power but how governance will be delivered till 2022. No one seems to be focusing on that calculation.
