PANJIM: A day after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) tagged itself as ‘elder brother’ and said it would decide whether to continue its alliance with the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP), the State’s oldest political outfit fired back claiming that no party can form a government in Goa without tying up with it.
Stating that a non-alliance government would lead to political instability, MGP questioned on what basis BJP calls itself the elder brother.
“If they are talking about elder brother in terms of its existence in Goa, then everyone knows which is the oldest political party in the state and hence it automatically stands to be the elder brother,” MGP president and Minister Pandurang (Dipak) Dhavalikar told Herald.
“I have been saying this since the beginning that no party can form a government without MGP. And any move to form a government without alliance will lead to instability,” he said.
The first popularly elected government in Goa was formed by the MGP in 1963 with Dayanand Bandodkar as the chief minister. He was succeeded by his daughter Shashikala Kakodkar as chief minister following his death. In the 1980s the party lost power and was in the opposition for long. With the Dhavalikar brothers – Sudin and Dipak – on a winning spree, the party has been in government as an alliance partner with Congress as well as the BJP.
Dhavalikar maintained that the party will continue its tie-up with the BJP for the 2017 elections. “No doubt there are demands from some BJP workers to end the alliance with MGP. But we don’t think the party senior leaders have the same feeling,” he said.
The BJP-MGP alliance had a historic victory in 2012 when it won 24 of 40 assembly seats. The alliance also fought the 2014 parliamentary elections together and managed to win both Lok Sabha seats.
In the 2015 Zilla Panchayat elections, which was fought on party lines, the alliance managed to get 25 out of 50 seats.
