Sandesh Prabhudesai
17 May 1999
Floor-crossing became the highlight of the last date of filing
nominations today with the alliance talks between the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak party and
the Bharatiya Janata Party breaking down late last night and Congress rebels joining the
regional parties here.
Unlike in the past, Goa is witnessing a new phenomena this time. Most
of the Congress aspirants, who have been denied tickets, have opted to join either the
MGP, the United Goans Democratic Party or the Goa Rajiv Congress rather than contesting as
independents.
"It would not have any adverse impact on the prospects of the
Congress", claims Luizinho Faleiro, the Goa PCC chief and former chief minister. He
however declines to commit whether his party would readmit these rebels, if elected, in
case of a hung Assembly.
With the 12-day long BJP-MGP alliance talks proving to be fruitless at
last minute, Dr Wilfred de Souza, the GRC leader, has now revived talks of forming a
regional front of the MGP, the UGDP and the GRC. "Our common motto is to fight the
Congress and the BJP", he claims.
MGP leader Ramakant Khalap is however agitated over failure of alliance
talks with the BJP, negotiated by union minister Pramod Mahajan and Maharashtra deputy
chief minister Gopinath Munde. "The blame lies entirely on the BJP, who remained
adamant on seat-sharing formula", he alleges.
Without giving any explanation to the MGP nor the mediapersons why the
talks failed, both Mahajan and Munde drove off to Mumbai today early morning while the
local leaders have shut their mouth on the issue. "Their proposals were not
acceptable", says Manohar Parrikar, the local BJP spokesperson and keeps quite.
Sources in the BJP however disclose that the local leadership was never
interested in forging the alliance but it was simply imposed by the party’s central
leadership. The BJP this time wants to go alone and win sizeable number of seats in the
40-member House to form the government.
While most of the BJP’s candidates are totally fresh faces, all
other parties have controversial and tainted leaders as their candidates. Congress tops
the list by giving tickets to all such leaders including 16 former legislators and six
ex-MLAs who were defeated in ’94 Assembly polls.
Instead of projecting its separate identity, all the three regional
parties have however wholeheartedly welcomed the Congress rebels into their party. Whether
the educated Goan voter, who is fed up of instability caused by such defectors, would once
again vote for them or not is a question he has to answer now on June 4, the day of the
polling.
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