Sandesh Prabhudesai
14 July 1999
Elections for the sole Rajya Sabha seat in Goa are likely to be quite
interesting as the non-Congress parties have fielded a Delhi-based lawyer as its common
candidate, while also expecting rebellion within the ruling Congress party on 26 July, the
day of polling.
To fight former union minister Eduardo Faleiro, who was rejected from
active politics by the South Goa electorate since 1996, Bhavani Shankar Gadnis has filed
nomination from Goa. He resigned from the post of the joint secretary of the legal cell of
the Congress and flew down to Goa.
Dr Wilfred de Souza, on behalf of whose Goa Rajiv Congress Gadnis is
contesting, feels he has won the first battle by seeking support of 16 opposition
legislators belonging to the three parties, including the 10-member Bharatiya Janata Party
and four-member Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party in the 40-member House. "I have to now
manage five more from the Congress", he says.
After engineering defections in the two-member United Goans Democratic
Party, strength of the ruling Congress party has risen to 23 while the sole independent is
also backing the government. "But I still do not rule out rebellion within the
Congress", claims Manohar Parrikar, the opposition leader belonging to the BJP.
At least nine Congress legislators are in a mood to protest against
chief minister Luizinho Faleiro’s dilly-dallying over expansion of the six-member
cabinet. In fact the situation is so fluid that there may be even change in the government
by the time month-long ongoing Assembly session ends on 3 September, if dissidence becomes
visible on 26 July.
Though some of the disgruntled Congress legislators are loyalists of
Rajya Sabha candidate Eduardo Faleiro, Parrikar feels de Souza’s choice for the
candidate is right as Gadnis is also equally close to a large chunk of the disgruntled
Congress legislators.
With Goa’s disqualification cases over defections reaching the Supreme Court time
and again, Gadnis has helped most of them in legal matters. It is to be seen whether this
relation would be reciprocated by electing him to the Rajya Sabha, though chief minister
is quite confident of his party’s victory
