Four Karnataka Congressmen to strategise party's poll plan for Goa 2022

It's an uphill task for the Congress in Goa, which has a history of legislators switching loyalties and bringing governments down.
Dinesh Gundu Rao
Dinesh Gundu Rao
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If the Congress's goal for 2022 in poll-bound states is to retain power in Punjab and snatch Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Manipur from the BJP, Goa offers a different challenge. It's not only about choosing the right candidates but ensuring they will stay with the party, which has a tendency to lose loyalties in this state.

In the 2017 Assembly elections, the Congress failed to form a government despite emerging as the single largest party. The BJP had succeeded in outwitting the party by swiftly cobbling together the requisite numbers to govern. In 2022, if the Congress manages to pull its act together and is victorious in the 40-member legislative Assembly, the party’s Karnataka unit can claim some credit for its success.

The reason? Of the five election strategists appointed by the Congress high command to oversee the campaign, four are from Karnataka. Former KPCC President Dinesh Gundu Rao is the AICC's observer for the polls in Goa, party MLC Prakash K Rathod is overall in-charge of reorganisation of booths and memberships drive, KPCC's Research Department chief and educationist Mansoor Khan is in charge of North Goa and functionary Sunil Hanamnnavar from Belagavi will look after South Goa. While all the four were appointed by the Congress high command in September 2020, former Union minister P Chidambaram took charge as senior election observer on August 9.

It's an uphill task for the Congress in Goa, which has a history of legislators switching loyalties and bringing governments down. The state has seen 13 Chief Ministers in 12 years. Though the Congress emerged as the single largest party with 17 MLAs in the 2017 Assembly polls, the BJP, with 13 legislators, reached out to the regional parties and independents to form the government.

The desertion of Congress MLAs began when Valpoi MLA Vishwajit Rane resigned from the party and Assembly membership after his election in 2017, and joined the BJP and was inducted into the cabinet. From 2017 till date, 13 Congress MLAs have defected to the BJP, reducing the party’s strength to five MLAs, just enough to hold on to the leader of the Opposition post. Of the five MLAs (one seat was won in the by-poll caused by former Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar's death), four are former Chief Ministers.

“The biggest challenge has been to unite all the Congressmen, which we have more or less succeeded in doing in the last eight months and created a conducive atmosphere. The 13 Congress MLAs who left the party were lured by the BJP to form an illegal government. This has been the BJP's strategy everywhere. When it doesn't win the elections, it poaches MLAs and forms the government, and Goa is one such,'' Rathod said.

In the last two decades, there have been only two occasions when Goa has seen close to a five-year term rule. BJP's Parrikar was the Chief Minister from October 2000 to February 2005 and Congress Digambar Kamat, who is now the CLP leader in the Assembly, from June 2007 to March 2012. In 2017, Parrikar once again became the CM but his demise in 2019 led to present incumbent Pramod Sawant succeeding him.

“The challenge before the Congress now is to channelise the people’s anger over the government’s performance. People are disillusioned with the state's law and order situation,  management of the COVID-19 crisis and over the controversial Goa Bhumiputra Adhikarini Bill, 2021, which provides legal sanctity to illegally constructed homes built over the last 30 years,'' Khan said.

No tickets to deserters

After its experience with defections in 2017, the Congress decided not to admit or give tickets to those who deserted the party. Chidambaram, during his visit to Goa last week, told the media that the party will field candidates, who are “loyal and faithful to the Congress ideology, hard working and ready to serve the interests of the party.'' 

Tickets will be given to those who have been recommended by the blocks and local committees, and all blocks committees have been dissolved and will be revamped, both Rathod and Khan said.

Alexio Sequeira has been made the Working President.

Though Goa is not a caste-ridden state, unlike Karnataka where caste plays a dominant role during elections, according to the 2011 census, Hindus constitute 66.08% of the total population followed by the Bhandaris with 30%, Catholic Christians 25.10% and Muslims 8.33%.

According to a political observer in Goa, there is little loyalty among the parties and governments have been formed and governed only through alliances. “Goa politics has always been a complicated ball game and there is  no need for a strategy. Each constituency has a maximum of 20,000 to 25,000 voters who have to be managed. The Congress has a good opportunity, but a lot depends on how it will encash it,'' he said.

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