At a time when the Congress party held sway across the country with governments in every State, Goa in 1963, began a romance with regionalism and rejected the national parties, remaining true to MGP and UGP till 1979. Goa’s first chief minister, Dayanand Bandodkar, was only the second non-Congress chief minister in the country after E M S Namboodiripad (communist) in Kerala. When regional parties began to attract voters in other States, Goa ended its romance with regional parties to embrace the Congress and later the BJP. The first Congress government in Goa was formed in 1980, and after that no regional party has managed to win an election, though the MGP came close in the 1989 elections.
Today, when West Bengal (TMC), Odisha (BJD), Tamil Nadu (AIADMK), Andhra Pradesh (TDP), Telangana (TRS) are governed by regional parties, and Uttar Pradesh (SP) and Bihar (JDU) also have very local formations in power, Goa has showed and maintained its preference for national parties.
