Sandesh Prabhudesai
25 Feb 1998
You know, who is the star campaigner in Goa ? It’s Atel Bihari
Vajpayee, the prime minister-in-waiting. And what’s the fate of the BJP candidates ?
They normally lose their deposits.
That is not all. The real flop rally Goa witnessed was the one
addressed by Sonia Gandhi, Congress’ star campaigner, that too when she had just
begun her public appearances. It was the fourth one after Sriperembudur, Bangalore and
Hyderabad, held on 17 January.
The ‘last hope of the Congress’ was greeted by only 4000
Goans, who have been electing Congress party in power for last two decades. Even for
Sonia, it was the first Congress-ruled state she was addressing.
Prime Minister I K Gujral is no different. In the home constituency of
union law minister Ramakant Khalap, he had to address around 4500 people, a day before
Vajpayee came here on Wednesday.
But Vajpayee broke all the records this time, attracting around 8000
people. The most impressive election rally never crosses a figure of 10,000, in a tiny
tourist state of 12 lakh population, of which 70 per cent are literate.
But, interestingly, such rallies is no indication for any good
political analysis here. On the contrary, Goans have always defeated the crowd-pulling
parties.
Even during post-emergency elections, thousands of people came to hear
the Janata Party leaders, including Vajpayee, George Fernandes, N G Gore, Mrinal Gore, Raj
Narayan and so on... But the candidates lost their deposits.
Sonia, the hot sensation of the country even a month ago, received
hardly any response to any appeal she made here at the rally. At least Gujral was lucky,
to get a positive response from most of the gathering, when he appealed to raise their
hands in Khalap’s favour.
But for Vajpayee, it was spontaneous and enthusiastic applause for each
and every comment. They literally cheered and gave standing ovation when he arrived at
Campal Grounds. It also included the non-BJP listeners.
They were waiting from 10 am to 1 pm in the hot sun for Vajpayee to
arrive. But hardly any non-Khalap supporter turned up to listen to Gujral, though he
arrived late evening, after office hours.
History has proved that such rallies make a little impact, but still
the candidates always try and get outside leaders to address. The BJP had actually pulled
a crowd of 10,00 for rallies addressed by Uma Bharati and Sadhvi Rithambara in last
elections.
Still Goa was visited this time by Sushma Swaraj, Nitin Gadkari, M G K
Menon, Madhu Chavan and Prakash Jawdekar of the BJP, Jammu and Kashmir chief minister
Farooq Abdullah and minister of state for external affairs Kamala Sinha to support Khalap
and Rajesh Pilot for the Congress.
Without having such fanfare, Goans elected Khalap and Churchill Alemao,
both regional party leaders, rejecting the national parties in ’96 polls.
Alemao however is the only candidate who continues to follow the same
strategy. He has invited two famous Mumbai-based Goan singers at his meetings at the fag
end of the campaign, not to give speeches but to sing.
Due to such strange behaviour, Jawaharlal Nehru had once commented :
"ajeeb hai yeh Goa-ke log" (Goans are strange people).
Goans appear to be not in a mood to insult Nehru, by changing this
impression. But local politicians still claim that such rallies do change votes in their
favour.
