The GPCC president Luizinho Faleiro, who expected a far easier run in Navelim, has had to use all his political experience to keep his head above the murky political waters. For the Congress, the Navelim seat is critical, not just from the confidence boosting point of view, but also in the final decision making of who front runner for the party Chief Minister will be, in case the Congress pulls it off on the February 4 polls.
However, what’s happening in Navelim is a reflection of the poll strategy of the BJP in the whole of Goa. Luizinho Faleiro’s statement, that the BJP is working overtime to divide the secular vote may be bang on but there are even deeper nuances one must understand.
And before these nuances are laid out, let’s underline that the strategy adopted in this political war is fair, from the BJP’s point of view. In an election where there is no wave towards the BJP, the mind has a greater role than the heart and in this department the BJP has the best asset in Manohar Parrikar. He has simply exploited the political and other greed of most Goa’s politicians and played them nicely to try and cause maximum damage to the Congress, especially in the Salcete and other areas. The Congress’ battle is to prevent its vote from splitting in key South Goa constituencies.
The BJP has worked on this like a scientific project. Phase one was to identify dependent candidates who could do the first phase of damaging in Salcete areas. Later as smaller parties started mushrooming and becoming parking lots for candidates of other parties who were denied tickets, the BJP “spotters” are believed to have worked on them, giving them an occasional boost. Phase two was to actually use the Goa Vikas Party to get into the poll mix in some of the Salcete constituencies and work with fledgling parties to split votes. The emergence of unknown independent candidates who are moving around with energy and with funds to spend should be watched very carefully.
2017 has been all about election management, but not all of it may work though. But the dropping of the two MGP ministers and the breakup of the alliance with MGP, triggered off a wave of desperation. Firming up the move to induct Pandurang Madkaikar, at the cost of deeply upsetting many party leaders and the cadre, was a result of this trigger. The lunge to get Congressman Pravin Zantye as the BJP candidate in Mayem, is further evidence that Mr Parrikar has taken the mergers and acquisition route to win seats which were unlikely to have been won by BJP’s home grown candidates.
The former Chief Minister knows the risk at hand and is clearly uncomfortable and even irritated at been asked repeated questions to justify and explain the inductions of Mauvin Godinho and Pandurang Madkaikar. During a chat with senior journalists recently, he quipped “Please leave it to me, I will handle this and I will mould them (Madkaikar and Godinho). There will be no problem at all.”
His problem lies elsewhere. What he cannot control is the division of BJP votes with the MGP and the Goa Suraksha Manch in places like Sankhalim, Mayem and Mandrem among other places. While he dismissed the influence of GSM’s supremo Subhash Velingkar, the ground reality s that the MGP-GSM presence will hurt the BJP at least in some key seats.
