Sandesh Prabhudesai
31 May 1999
The Goan voter, disgusted with defection games for the last two terms
since 1990, is left with a very little choice in the state Assembly elections, as nearly
half of the main contestants in the fray are defectors.
The only party having smallest number of defectors as their candidate
is the Bharatiya Janata Party. But their ‘fresh faces’ are totally alien to the
electorate in several places though the party is still looked upon as the one having
‘clean’ candidates.
Among total 156 serious candidates in the fray including around 16
important independents, at least 66 are either having a history of defections in the past
or are known as ‘habitual defectors’. In fact, around 13 among them have
switched sides even before polls are held, to become candidates of other parties.
The Congress, as a part of their routine ritual, have expelled 25
Congressmen, who are contesting as rebels against the party candidates. But Luizinho
Faleiro, the Goa PCC chief and aspirant for the chief minister’s post, refuses to
assure that they would not be embraced for support, if elected, to form the Congress
government in case of a hung Assembly.
The statistics of defectors comes out with startling disclosures, with
the Congress having highest number of 21 defectors among 39 as their candidates. The
Loutolim seat is already being won unopposed by Alex Sequeira of the Congress while the
BJP has accused of their party candidate being ‘bought over’ there.
The Goa Rajiv Congress, created as a shelter for the defected
Congressmen by its leader Dr Wilfred de Souza, has 11 defectors out of its total 14
candidates. De Souza, having been defected at least five times during his three-decade
long political career, does not feel ashamed to admit that he is a loyal Congressman and
would align with the Congress, if necessary, after the polls.
The Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party, considered to be the prime
opposition since Congress started ruling here from 1980, has fielded 11 defectors, five of
whom are the Congress rebels. "It is part of ‘rannaniti’ (battlefield
strategy)", proudly says Prof Surendra Sirsat, the MGP chief.
The United Goans Democratic Party, having created its base among the
few Catholic-dominated areas on the plank of anti-Congressism, has also fielded five
defectors, all of whom are the ones denied tickets either by the Congress or the Goa Rajiv
Congress.
The BJP is not saintly either. After getting elected two former
Congressmen as their legislators in ’94 elections itself, the party also brought in
yet another MGP aspirant this time, fielding him against their own partyman, Pandurang
Raut, who had joined the Congress few months ago and is now the MGP candidate.
The 66 defectors include at least six former chief ministers, including
Shashikala Kakodkar belonging to the MGP, de Souza of the GRC as well as Pratapsing Rane,
Churchill Alemao, Ravi Naik and Luizinho Faleiro of the Congress. Alemao, de Souza and
Naik among them had in fact defected only to capture the CM’s ‘valuable’
chair.
There are also 21 such former ministers, 10 of whom were the ministers
in the recently dissolved Assembly and the rest in the seventh Assembly, since when jumbo
cabinets became the necessity of defection games. There are also four more, who have
history of defections and one of them, Sanjay Bandekar, was even disqualified by the
Supreme Court in the past.
There are also 16 more candidates, who were the legislators in the past
and 11 of them even ministers, who are now trying their luck by becoming candidate, no
matter what party label they carry. Six of them are in fact independents, contesting as
the Congress rebels.
Veteran among them is over 75-year old Deu Mandrekar, who has defected
ten times till date and is presently contesting as independent, after the Republican Party
of India refused to allot him the B form at last minute.
He defected four times in the last Assembly with a sole aim to become minister even
when he was not in a condition to take oath, which was finally pronounced by his nephew,
who was holding him on one side at one of such ‘routine’ swearing-in ceremonies
Your Comments Please
