TEAM HERALD
PANJIM: The Bharatiya Janata Party’s apparent plan to test the waters for the 2017 Assembly elections with party-based Zilla Panchayat elections, virtually bombed with the party failing to wrest a comfortable majority in North Goa, but managed a wafer-thin majority in South Goa. Though Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar admitted defeat of the party in strong constituencies, he put it down to organization factors, and flatly refused to concede it was a verdict on three years of BJP’s governance at the State level.
The ruling alliance is now banking on ‘unattached’ MLA Atanasio Monserrate- fielded independent candidates to drum up majority in the North Goa ZP. The alliance’s wafer-thin majority in South Goa ZP is a result of victories of Francisco (Mickky) Pacheco’s Goa Vikas Party (GVP) candidates, besides those of the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP).
The ZP results, declared Friday, were in sharp contrast to the thumping BJP-MGP alliance victory at the 2012 Assembly elections and the 2014 Parliamentary elections.
In North Goa, the BJP-led alliance, which included MGP and GVP, wrestled 12 out of 25 seats it contested, leaving them with the option to take support of Monserrate’s candidates or any independent. BJP won only a meager 11 out of 23 seats it contested, while MGP won one out of two. BJP insiders revealed that party has received support from Monserrate-backed two independent candidates from St Cruz and Taleigao, taking their total strength to 14.
In the South Goa ZP, the alliance which included the MGP and GVP, got a thin majority as they won 13 of 25 seats. BJP won seven seats, while MGP managed four and GVP two. Pacheco’s candidate was defeated in his home constituency – Nuvem by bete noir independent Wilfred D’Sa.
As the results came in, Parsekar tried to put up a brave front saying the results were “expected”, and denied that the loss in some constituencies was due to “failure in governance”.
“I think it was a mid-term appraisal of the government and we have passed the exam. We have won the trust of the people. If there are some setbacks in few constituencies they are due to several factors. But governance was surely not a factor,” Parsekar said, in the presence of party president Vinay Tendulkar, minutes after the day-long counting of the ZP results ended.
This is the first time that the ZP polls were held on party lines. The Opposition Congress, and ally NCP and other regional parties had not participated in the polls officially but had backed individual candidates.
Parsekar said that the results were “a learning experience for the party” and it will examine the results in those constituencies where the party did not fare well. “The ZP election taught us many lessons. We will have to now introspect. ZP gave us opportunity to learn from our weaknesses and strengths,” he said. He added, “There were several organizational factors that led to the party’s defeat in some of its strong constituencies.”
The chief minister, however, refused to say that the results were unexpected. “All the Opposition parties had come together to fight against official candidates of the alliance. But there were no consolidated opponents that won against us,” he said. The chief minister also rubbished rumors about people looking for a third front stating that ‘independent candidates were not one force, but people with different ideologies and hence cannot be considered as third force’.
