The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has a long way to go before it can truly say that it represents all sections of Goan society spread across the State. This is evident in the seat distribution for the Zilla Panchayat (ZP) polls that the party has arrived at with the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP), the Goa Vikas Party (GVP) and two Independent MLAs.
One glance at the seat distribution and it is obvious that the BJP has strongly underlined its importance in being the senior partner in the alliance by retaining 34 of the 50 ZP seats for itself – that’s almost 70 per cent of the total ZP seats – reducing the other parties and Independents to bit players. Yet, it is also obvious that the BJP is well aware it needs these crutches – the regional parties and Independents – if it has to run on the political race track and win the race in 2017.
An analysis of the seat distribution throws light on an interesting aspect of the popularity of the BJP in the two districts and of the party being aware of it. In North Goa, BJP has retained 23 of the 25 seats, leaving just two constituencies to the MGP. Obviously the party feels that it is strong in this district, and should the alliance wrest a majority in North Goa, it will be a BJP member that will occupy the top position.
In South Goa, the situation is different. BJP will prop up candidates in just 11 constituencies leaving the other 14 to its alliance partners. MGP gets seven seats here and GVP gets five with two left to the Independents. Interestingly, in Catholic dominated Salcete, where BJP’s presence is fairly limited, the party has kept just two seats – Davorlim and Guirdolim – for itself. Davorlim has a large migrant population that the BJP hopes to cultivate, while after the delimitation of seats, areas of Ambaulim and Balli have been included in Guirdolim ZP constituency that could turn the tide in favour of the party here. The other seats in Salcete have been left to the GVP and the nominees of the Independents. MGP gets a large share of the seats from Ponda.
It will be interesting to see which party’s ZP member will be adyaksh in South Goa should the alliance get enough seats to have its person occupy the top position. Though BJP is contesting from 11 seats, the regional parties and the Independents together have a larger number of seats they are contesting and the possibility of them bargaining for posts cannot be set aside. There doesn’t appear to be any other motive for this alliance other than securing the ground for the 2017 Assembly polls, making it a lose amalgamation of political parties and politicians.
Fragile as it is, the alliance for this election being just a matter of convenience, there are bound to differences between the partners. While the BJP and the MGP can have an ideological meeting point, the GVP and the two Independents are far removed from the BJP ideology. There can be no common ground between the two parties that they can project to the voters, except for a common minimum programme that will be projected in the promised common manifesto. The same holds good for the Independents. They supported the BJP after the party’s 2012 electoral win. Had Congress won more seats in that election, it is likely that the regional parties and Independents would have supported that party.
The alliance turns even more brittle following the call last week by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), a part of the Sangh Parivar, for a ‘Ghar Wapsi’ of Goan Catholics. This call is not going to help the GVP and Independent MLAs to convince the minorities in this taluka to vote for their candidates, leading to the alliance partners facing a setback in Salcete. There has already been a demand from the opposition that if the regional allies don’t agree with the VHP ‘Ghar Wapsi’ call, they should walk out of the alliance.
In Goa’s unstable political environment this tenuous alliance is nothing but a political game being played with an eye on the 2017 elections. It will be the parties that stay away from fielding candidates on party symbols that will ultimately be the bigger losers.
