If you listen to the speech given by the Union Minister Nitin Gadkari during the Goa state BJP executive meeting held on Friday, it is clear that this is the reflection of the BJP after the Lok Sabha election results (both of the country and the State). On the one hand, the joy of Shripad Naik’s sixth consecutive victory was definitely seen in this executive, but on the other hand, there was a regret that South Goa could not be captured. It was clear from the speeches made by the leaders that the BJP has already started its preparations on how to win the 2027 assembly elections by getting the maximum number of seats.
Gadkari’s speech at the Goa state executive was supposed to be his first speech after the Lok Sabha election results. But it is also worth noting that the first mention of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Gadkari’s speech came after the 15th minute. Instead, Gadkari emphasised that remembering the past of the party and the workers who have contributed to the party is of utmost importance. While saying this, he recalled the speech of Atal Bihari Vajpayee in 1980. At the beginning of his speech, Gadkari reminded what Vajpayee had said in his speech, that it is not important who will be the Prime Minister candidate for BJP, but how the country will develop. What does Gadkari want to suggest by highlighting Vajpayee’s 1980 speech?
In fact, BJP fought all the last three elections by promoting the face of Narendra Modi. In the 2024 elections, the BJP and Modi himself campaigned with the tagline ‘Vote for BJP’s candidate means vote for Modi’. And, also, instead of the government’s guarantee, the phrase ‘Modi ki guarantee’ was bombarded at every BJP campaign meeting. But the BJP did not gain success in this election as anticipated, and the party had to form the government with the help of other parties. In short, the magic of Modi’s face faded during this election. And that is probably why the BJP leaders and indeed the staunch leaders of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh have now realized that too much personalism is of no use. Among them, Nitin Gadkari is the leader in contention for discussion of names for the post of Prime Minister. Moreover, he is a staunch worker of the RSS. Therefore, Gadkari in his speech constantly advised the party to remember the past and plan for the future. He repeatedly said in his speech that “if we want to do well as a party organization in the future, we should remember the past”. In short, he emphasized that if the BJP wants to retain power, it will have to take with it the workers who have been working hard for the party so far.
Gadkari also gave an example of hybrid seed farming in his speech. He said that hybrids increase yield but also increase disease. This means that the BJP is trying to suggest that the current trend of bringing MLAs from other parties into its party can be dangerous in the future, but actually, that Gadkari himself should give an example of a hybrid seed is both surprising and ridiculous. Because it cannot be forgotten that Gadkari himself has been at the forefront to form the BJP government in Goa by importing MLAs from other parties. So, Gadkari himself has used the hybrid method. However, he wanted to give this example now after the results of the Lok Sabha elections in Maharashtra. The experiment done by the BJP in Maharashtra, that is, splitting Thackeray Shiv Sena to form government with Eknath Shinde, then breaking Sharad Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party and taking Ajit Pawar with BJP, and also seeing to it that Thackeray’s and Sharad Pawar’s party symbols will not remain with them. The experiment failed miserably and the BJP could not even reach the double-digit number of MPs in Maharashtra.
Meanwhile, there are still two and a half years to go for the Goa assembly elections. In these two and a half years, there may be many changes at the Centre and the State. MLAs who came to BJP from Congress have not done anything significant. However, in view of the upcoming assembly elections, some of these MLAs will have to be given ministerial posts. For that, some of the current BJP ministers will have to give up their Cabinet posts. And in all this, the Chief Minister will be tested. In short, in Gadkari’s words, the Chief Minister has to take care that the native land is not damaged due to this hybrid experiment.
On the other hand, Congress’ confidence has obviously been boosted by its good performance in the Centre and in South Goa. In the next two and a half years, Congress will get the opportunity and time to make up for the losses caused by the turncoat MLAs. This challenge is also going to be faced by BJP in the assembly elections. That is why Gadkari gave another important advice to the MLAs in his speech, that BJP MLAs should do their own ‘performance audit’ since they are in power. Whether the BJP MLAs will do this or not is not yet known. But it is necessary for the people of Goa to vote for every candidate in the upcoming elections only after carrying out a ‘performance audit’ of each candidate, irrespective of the party.
