BJP gains little, loses more
Sandesh Prabhudesai
11 June 2002
Union home minister Lal Krishna Advani
may claim that the Bharatiya Janata Party has turned victorious
in the crucial mid-term Assembly elections in Goa. But in
reality, it has lost more while gaining little.
With absolute majority of 21 in the 40-member
House, chief minister Manohar Parrikar dissolved the Assembly
on 27 February, though Goans had elected only 10 BJP men
in 1999 polls. Today, after seeking a fresh mandate on 30
May, they are still at 17.
It is thus still a question whether the
saffron brigade has gained seven or lost four, after asking
for a vote in the name of good governance of 16 months.
The BJP did not want to rule with a fractured mandate as
their strength had swollen to 21 by admitting 11 Congressmen
into the party.
"Our calculations went little wrong", admits
Laxmikant Parsekar, the local BJP chief, who defeated former
union minister Ramakant Khalap of the Congress. In a hung
Assembly, Parrikar has once again become the chief minister,
but of a coalition government, with two small regional outfits
- the UGDP and the MGP.
Union minister Pramod Mahajan, soon after
the poll results, complimented the local party leaders for
increasing the votes from 26 per cent to 38 per cent, while
the Congress reduced from 39 per cent to 38 per cent, winning
only 16 seats this time, against 21 in '99.
No doubt the BJP has secured more number
of votes this time, but could retain only 10 seats, including
two seats which they contested by fielding those who had
defected from the Congress. They had denied tickets to three
defected legislators and one 'original', while former deputy
chief minister Ravi Naik quit last minute. He got re-elected
on the Congress ticket.
But the BJP also lost six seats, of which
two belonged to the 'original' saffronites and four neo-saffronites,
including three ministers and the deputy speaker. Comparatively,
the Congress lost almost eight seats of sitting MLAs, including
six of its traditional strongholds of bigwigs like Churchill
Alemao, Khalap and PCC president Nirmala Sawant as well
as scamsters like Mauvin Godinho and Somnath Zuwarkar.
Incidentally, both the parties could win
seven new seats each. But only three among them were won
by the BJP on its own while credit for the remaining four
goes to the split vote between the Congress and the NCP
as the alliance talks among them failed at the last minute.
In spite of this, the Congress could get
in seven new seats including four new faces. Sitting independent
MLA Isidore Fernandes as well as former MLAs Harish Zantye
and Joaquim Alemao also stepped into the House once again.
"We could not gain majority solely due
to disunity among the Congressmen and anti-party activity",
alleges Sawant, the PCC chief, who also lost the polls.
The Congress wanted to win the polls to
show the country that the BJP continues to lose after the
Gujarat carnage. The BJP is also now trying to project the
coalition as its full-fledged party government, in order
to counter the Congress strategy. But in reality, both the
parties were kept out of absolute power, by electing the
hung Assembly.
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