Weak MGP searching for poll partner
SANDESH PRABHUDESAI, PANAJI | 07 May 1999 12:18 ISTMaharashtrawadi Gomantak Party, which had ruled Goa for the 17 long years with four terms soon after liberation, is today struggling hard to retain its identity in the state Assembly polls. The Congress as well as the BJP however are planning to go alone to face the electorate on 4 June.
Former union law minister Ramakant Khalap, the MGP leader, is seen hobnobbing with almost all the political parties to forge poll alliance, though both the national parties are not fully receptive to the idea. The situation has changed drastically after the Lok Sabha is dissolved.
Winds of Assembly polls had started blowing along the coastal state soon after the House was prematurely dissolved in February and President’s rule was imposed. Expecting elections by May end, the MGP had almost finalised a regional front along with the United Goans Democratic Party and the Goa Rajiv Congress, the splinter Congress group, led by Dr Wilfred de Souza.
The sympathy wave being created in BJP’s favour after Lok Sabha dissolution has however changed all the permutations and combinations here. Khalap was the first one to react, stating that the BJP would benefit from it and his party would also reconsider its alignment programme. The regional front, since then, is in doldrums.
The MGP leadership is vertically divided on the alliance issue. Khalap suddenly airdashed to Delhi early this week to hold talks with Congress leader Sharad Pawar, who has proposed to party chief Sonia Gandhi that they could align with the MGP to fight the BJP in the tourist state.
Goa PCC chief Luizinho Faleiro, who was also in the national capital during the same time this week, claims he is not aware of it. Sources close to him however confirm that Faleiro has vehemently opposed the proposal as he is already walking on a tight rope due to fierce infighting over allocation of tickets.
Another group within the MGP, led by former chief minister Shashikala Kakodkar, has however strongly proposed to have an alliance with the BJP. Interestingly, the hindutvawadi party had made debut with four legislators in the ’94 Assembly polls by aligning with the MGP. The saffron party has strengthened its based in all the 40 constituencies since then.
The local BJP leadership, on the other hand, appears to be more interested in breaking the MGP rather than joining hands with them. "We would welcome like-minded people from all the quarters", states Dr Suresh Amonkar, the local BJP chief. The process has in fact already begun with prospective MGP candidates joining the BJP.
The political circles in the state are shaken up with a pre-Lok Sabha dissolution survey conducted by Excellent Relations, a private firm, which puts Congress on the first rank with around 44 per cent, followed by the BJP with 30 per cent. The MGP however is pushed down to mere three per cent, as the UGDP and the GRC are also not crossing more than four per cent each.
The BJP leaders claim that the post-dissolution sympathy wave would help them further in strengthening their base while the Congress margin would come down due to rebellion after ticket allocation, which is an usual phenomena for all these years. "We will not tolerate any revolt", roars Faleiro but hesitates to state confidently that party rebels won’t threaten their prospects.
