All of Friday, we went searching for the party with a difference and didn’t find one. The BJP’s battle to find the next successor for Manohar Parrikar was like looking for a pirated version of a game that the Congress has played for ages and are now very tired veterans of the same game.
So tired that when Antanasio Monserrate publicly announced, that he had decided to resign from the Congress to contest the Panjim seat, vacated by Mr Parrikar as an independent, the party didn’t even blink. You could put that down to lifelessness though. Meanwhile in other assorted sideshows, Mauvin Godinho continued to praise the BJP and continue to be a Congress MLA.
Across the board though, the party with a difference – the BJP- seemed hardly different with three contenders for Chief Minister’s post snapping at each other’s heels, eating away at the fabric of unity. It wasn’t a pleasing sight. As the glue of Mr Parrikar’s presence came off, the façade of a cohesive unit fell by the wayside, as two of the BJP’s next rung of leaders, lesser equals of Parrikar, wanted the job to themselves. While Speaker Rajendra Arlekar was sedate and initially sure since he had the outgoing Chief Minister’s backing, Laxmikant Parsekar wasn’t one to let a chance of a lifetime go abegging. He literally stuck to Mr Parrikar through Thursday and was back at his residence by 8 am and then left in the Chief Minister’s official car to the secretariat for a meeting of MLA’s.
Then there was Francis D Souza, back in Goa after an overnight long haul from London. He may have been jet lagged but did not lag behind in joining the race by holding a meeting of five MLA’s who pledged support to him and got very surprising support from the likes of Rajan Naik of Cuncolim. Armed with this support he left to meet Mr Parrikar, his old friend, who listened to him, soothed his bruised ego and quietly palmed him off saying that the party high command would take a decision. Now haven’t we heard that before? The same Mr Parrikar- and his party- which has attacked the ‘high command’ raj of the Congress for ages, lost no opportunity to play the same card to sideline its most loyal and senior leader in his own right, and not just because he is a minority leader.
What was further painful was the sight of Francis D’ Souza going to meet the central BJP observers, in a last minute attempt to turn the tide in his favour when there was indeed no wave. Now if he carries out his threat of not joining the next BJP cabinet, and may well take a political hit, he will take the BJP down with him- in this specific case at least. It’s carefully cultivated image of playing inclusive politics, post the BJP assembly victory in 2012, will in one symbolic stroke be wiped out.
The manner in which Arlekar, Parsekar and Francis D’ Souza, ironically from neighbouring or nearby constituencies of North Goa fought as three independent power centers has shown the Goa BJP for what it actually was. Parrikar won the mandate and made everyone subservient to his command. It will now be a battle of far lesser equals.
The potential fallout of this will be that the BJP government will run exactly the way the Congress did- with one Chief Minister- because the state needs a CM, along with other senior leaders running their own show like independent businesses. There will be mini growth curves in departments or constituencies, each aimed maximizing the returns of the regional political lord.
Goa, if you recall, had voted the Congress out of power to precisely avoid such a scenario. Like a bad nightmare, this is a cruel dejavu for the people of Goa.
The sight of the Chief Minister holding one on one interviews with MLA’s, and the Deputy Chief Minister and other CM hopefuls literally on the road and in hotels, to be seen and heard at the right places, is not a picture Mr Parrikar will like to take with him to Delhi. Though this is not of his own making, it just shows the hollowness of his party in power. Well, they are just like the Congress and that’s probably the worst compliment anyone could ever have in today in Goa.
