BY PRAMOD ACHARYA
Today's BJP in Goa resembles the Congress of 2012. Six months prior to a general assembly election, the party is facing the 'problem of plenty.'
The party is overburdened with heavyweights having fiefdoms of their own; these modern-day local chieftains hold ambitions to magnify their footprint in several constituencies starting with the adjoining ones. They plan to field their kin as candidates from these surrounding constituencies and the party has already announced that the ticket allocation will be on the sole criteria of 'winnability'.
Now spot the difference between the Congress of 2012 and the BJP of 2022.
Babu Kavlekar desires a ticket for his wife. Michael Lobo has his eyes set on Saligao and Siolim. Vishwajit Rane has already marked his taluka. Babush Monserrate with two assembly seats in his kitty and Mayorship of the capital city with his son may look at Tiswadi as his playing field. In constituencies like Mandrem and Canacona, the claimants are the original BJP leadership vs the imported Congress and MGP leaders.
BJP's predicament is further compounded by having a cadre, which in all their lifetime has fought against some leaders and their tendencies, being forced to accept the same leaders as candidates on the lotus symbol. Suddenly, their strength of having a formidable cadre on the ground is turned into a quandary they need to mitigate.
In addition, some of the MLAs from the minority community, who switched from the Congress, in all probability, will desert the BJP. The party also would facilitate their exit and assist in their campaign covertly. Most of them may contest as an independent or on another prefixed party hoping to win and return to the fold in a post-poll scenario. How that would pan out for the BJP and these individual candidates, needs to be seen.
But what about BJP's vote share and all those devoted voters who opted for the party over two decades? Manohar Parrikar is no longer around to stoke the campaign fire. The design of this Goa BJP and the governance that the poster boy espoused no longer exist. Moreover, this BJP increasingly looks like a ‘saffronised’ Congress. Their administration too is no different. The Chief Minister is doing everything in his powers to present a humane facade of the administration while the people expect a streamlined phase of governance. How will the core BJP voter perceive it?
A BJP voter in Goa has constantly been a mix of ideological affiliation and Parrikar driven fascination of an idea of governance. Although that voter base consistently failed to bring the BJP to power, it remained loyal. Today BJP hopes to gain vote share utilising the imported heavyweights, however, for the first time risks losing its core voter base that propelled the party to 14-15 seats unfailingly.
The newfound thought process primarily revolves around constituency arithmetic. Can Vishwajit, Michael, Babush, Babu Kavlekar win two seats each? Can Nilesh Cabral, Rajesh Patnekar, Mauvin Godinho, Carlos Almeida retain their seats? And can Deepak Pawaskar, Babu Ajgaonkar, Dayanand Sopte, Clafacio Dias, Subhash Shirodkar who have a strong BJP presence in their constituency, win on a BJP ticket? And whether BJP's staunch voters will accept this arithmetic over the Manohar chemistry that was driving them all these years?
We need to comprehend one unambiguous actuality. If a majority of voters sought the BJP to be in power, Manohar Parrikar would have been sworn-in as Chief Minister of Goa in 2007. Parrikar's government went out of power in 2005 on high moral ground. 2006 witnessed mass public agitation against the draconian regional plan 2011 under the banner of Goa Bachao Abhiyan. The Pratapsingh Rane led government was painted as villainous. Babush Monserrate had to step down as Town and Country Planning minister. And yet in 2007 Congress-NCP alliance retained power with 21 seats.
The BJP under the undisputed leadership of Manohar Parrikar decisively attained reins of the state only in 2012 when a large section of voters felt disgusted with the Congress after their tumultuous tenure from 2007 to 2012.
Probably this current re-forged BJP has understood this prescription. The party cannot win the majority with its set voter base. It never has. It needs a sizeable non-BJP vote share to swing towards it to cross the majority mark. The most achievable way to do it is by inducting people with their personal non-BJP vote share. Can this arithmetic work?
For this number game to be effective BJP's two presuppositions need to be effectual. One: saffron voter base and cadre should not get dejected and look out for options. Two: individual voter base of these heavyweight leaders should be gullible enough to blindly trust their local leadership. BJP's plan is bound to fail if one of these equations falters.
The leading advantage the party enjoys is the absence of any Parrikar-like figurehead on the opposite side of the political aisle. There is no leader in the non-BJP space that can harness the discontent against this government or appeal to the better senses of the core BJP voter or cadre. Tragically, there is no one that can determinedly persuade non-BJP voters whose leaders have shifted allegiances towards the BJP to vote back for a different choice. BJP is devoid of any political chemistry today. However, the opposition has neither the arithmetic nor the chemistry. And no one can win an election if you are incapable of capturing imagination of citizens against an organised ruling class.
