Advantage Cong; multi-corner contest visible
SANDESH PRABHUDESAI, PANAJI | 15 February 1999 11:42 ISTDespite efforts to unite non-Congress forces in Goa, multi-corner fight appears inevitable in the tourist state in the coming elections, which are expected early after President’s rule is being imposed here this month.
Without waiting for the election commission to decide dates of fresh polls, either before or after the monsoons, election fever has already started gripping almost all the political parties in the state.
The Congress, which ruled most of the times in last four years despite witnessing three chief ministers, claims to win 30 seats out of total 40, though in reality its popularity has gone down tremendously.
"This time, we will not entertain any tainted leader", claims Goa PCC chief Shantaram Naik, while his own position is actually being threatened by former COFEPOSA detenue and alleged smuggler Churchill Alemao, presently the senior vice president of the local Congress unit.
Former chief minister Luizinho Faleiro has assured to start with a clean slate "at any cost", while he is trying to seize the position of the state PCC chief at any cost. Knowing the deteriorated image of the party, he even participated in the Carnival parade along with his ex-legislator supporters.
Despite series of defections and counter-defections, the Congress is still at 18, the number with which they had entered the House in ’94 polls. Though seven of its members revolted under the leadership of former chief minister Dr Wilfred de Souza, they matched up engineering defections in the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party and Alemao’s United Goans Democratic Party.
The UGDP however is still a force among the Catholics in South Goa and de Souza’s Goa Rajiv Congress, a force in the North, is planning to join hands with them to float a new regional front. Using his good relations with former union law minister Ramakant Khalap, de Souza has also succeeded to rope in the MGP, to make it a ‘real’ anti-Congress front.
"Not they, we are the real anti-Congress force in the state", claims BJP leader Manohar Parrikar, who has decided not to continue its alliance with the MGP or any other party this time. Pointing out at their ‘soft-corner behaviour’ towards the Congress, he claims a comfortable victory by rallying behind all the anti-Congress votes.
Though the BJP could make a debut with only four MLAs last time mainly because of its alliance with the MGP, it has spread its tentacles very systematically with the help of Vajpayee wave created in the literate state in recently held Lok Sabha elections.
But the BJP’s clean image is also getting damaged as Pandurang Raut, who had shocked even the political analysts by polling over 35 per cent votes in a triangular fight in the Lok Sabha polls, has quit the party to join back the Congress camp.
Dr Willy’s regional front-in-the-offing has also begun a scathing attack on the BJP, reminding the people about they foiling the attempts to form a non-Congress government in ’94 as well as to withdraw its support once again to de Souza, creating a situation for the President’s rule.
Despite its eroded image, the Congress may ultimately emerge victorious if the anti-Congress votes divide among de Souza’s regional front and the BJP. The hung Assembly would also be then inevitable, encouraging continuance of the game of defections to form the government.
