Goa has 'glorious' history of defections ! (Part II)

By Sandesh Prabhudesai
29 November 1999 

IDEOLOGY-KO MARO GOLI !

The so called national wave swept the whole state during fifth Assembly elections, held in January 1980, as the local leaders joined the Congress (Urs) camp, deserting Indira Gandhi. The MGP got reduced to only seven seats in the new House while Shashikala faced a miserable defeat in Bicholim against her one-time loyalist Harish Zantye, a joint candidate of the opposition. Even the Congress (I) and the Janata Party could not poll more than three to four per cent votes each while Cong (U) won 19 seats, establishing absolute majority in the House.

As Cong (I) swept the polls at national level, Goa witnessed the most shameful act of practically every legislator, across the party lines, joining the Indira camp overnight. Besides 19 Cong (U) MLAs, MGP's five, Teotonio Pereira of Janata (Secular) and three independents - Chandrakant Chodankar, Vishnu R Naik and Zantye, joined the Congress (I). The MGP remained as the sole opposition in the House with two MLAs - Khalap and Babuso Gaonkar - as they changed their mind last minute. Even Shashikala joined the Congress camp, to leave it at later stage.

Pratapsing Rane, a compromise candidate between Dr Willy group and Babu Naik group, emerged as the first chief minister of the Congress. But as de Souza started losing hold over the party affairs, he developed cold feet for his 'national sentiments' and left the party within three years along with three others and formed the Goa Congress, a regional party. On the other hand, Shashikala also got totally sidelined among the local Cong (I), ending her honeymoon to form the Bhausaheb Bandodkar Gomantak Party (BBGP) along with seven MLAs, as the MGP also rejected her.

DEFECTORS BITE THE DUST

The sixth Assembly election, held in December 1984, turned out to be a historic one by rejecting all the double defectors, except the whole lot which had gone back to Indira Gandhi, leaving Devraj Urs. Except Zantye, everyone who had joined the BBGP as well as the Goa Congress as well as Chodankar and Vishnu Naik (elected as independents earlier) had to bite dust. Though the MGP rose from two to eight in this poll, the Congress once again established absolute majority with 18.

Except Luizinho Faleiro, none of the remaining 27 Goa Congress candidates including Dr Willy and his former legislator colleagues could woo the voters in the name of regional sentiments and anti-Congress propaganda. Similar was the case with Shashikala, who could not reach anywhere near her MGP rivals, despite utilising her late father's charisma. She lost all the 23 seats.

But polarisation took place once again with the subsequent historical language agitation taken place in 1986, which made Konkani the official language and granted statehood to Goa. The Goa Congress got merged into the Congress while Tai's BBGP was gracefully brought back to the MGP's lion, on the eve of 1989 elections held for the seventh Assembly, which was the first Assembly election for the State.

The number of Assembly constituencies thus increased from 30 to 40. But the '89 elections brought in a new trend in the electoral history, of electing a hung Assembly. Despite fresh faces, the Congress could not win more than 20 seats while the MGP shot up from 8 to 18, leaving two seats for the rebel Congressmen, elected as independents.

'CULTURAL REVOLUTION' OF DEFECTIONS

Though Rane could form his government for the third consecutive term by making the independent MLA Dr Carmo Pegado a minister in his five-member cabinet, perhaps the new faces wanted much more, as the political culture had fully shifted its focus on selfish gains and ministerial berths. As a result, within 75 days, the Rane government collapsed with seven Congressmen splitting to form Goan Peoples Party, under speaker Luis Proto Barbosa's leadership.

Making full use of the loopholes in the newly legislated Anti-defection Act, the rebels formed a coalition government called the Progressive Democratic Front, giving representation of six each to the GPP and the MGP in the first jumbo cabinet of Goa. But the 'progressive experiment' could last only for 10 months, when deputy chief minister Ramakant Khalap withdrew MGP's support while winning over three GPP guys on their side.

But the 13-member strong Congress decided not to support any coalition though Barbosa claimed support of 24 including the Congress. The confusion led to keep the year-old Assembly under suspended animation while imposing the President's rule, thus indirectly permitting further horsetrading, so that the governor could be convinced about 'real majority'.

While Barbosa and two MGP legislators - Ratnakar Chopdekar and Sanjay Bandekar - who supported him were disqualified under the provisions of the anti-defection act, the MGP split further with five more, to make its leader Ravi Naik the new chief minister with the Congress support. The governor got satisfied with the 'intelligent horsetrading' and allowed even the two disqualified horses to rule in the Ravi government.

The MGP (Ravi Naik) group was then merged into the Congress and Ravi expanded the strength of his jumbo cabinet to 14, satisfying maximum number of greedy politicians in both the camps. But with Ravi being disqualified by the high court along with Chopdekar and Bandekar, he was replaced by de Souza, who had actually masterminded the whole coup to seize the seat of power.

This Assembly witnessed the most shameful acts of defections and masterminding in which even the governor's office got dragged in and Bhanu Prakash Singh was transferred for dismissing Willy government to reinstate Ravi, once he was requalified by the Supreme Court. The speaker's office was used for disqualifying and even requalifing the disqualified ones while the state witnessed seven chief ministers in five years.

Most of these defectors were given a fitting reply by the electorate by defeating them in the 1994 Assembly elections. Except the three GPP members and one MGP man who were readmitted into the Congress - besides Churchill Alemao, the remaining nine defectors including Ravi had to go home. Even Khalap, who encouraged the new defection culture, was not sent back to the House.

PRESIDENT'S RULE ONCE AGAIN

The mandate of eighth Assembly election was not fully in favour of the Congress, which won only 18 seats while electing 12 MGP, 4 BJP and 3 UGDP, besides three independents. But as the non-Congress forces could not come together to form the government due to BJP's reservations in supporting Alemao's UGDP, Rane could make it again by engineering defections in the MGP to form his government with the support of four defectors. He then also managed to get all the three UGDP men admitted into the Congress, increasing his strength to 25.

But he was pulled down within three and a half years by his own deputy chief minister, Dr Willy once again, who formed the Goa Rajiv Congress along with nine others to head a coalition government with MGP's participation. The BJP conveniently forgot its principle of value-based politics and supported the defectors' government from outside.

The coalition could not last even for three and a half months as a group of four within the GRC revolted against Dr Willy, to join back the Congress camp and make Luizinho Faleiro as the new chief minister, with the support of only 21. But Dr Willy did not allow him to rule even for three months, pulling out only one Congressman - Deu Mandrekar - along with another independent.

The BJP however decided not to support any government, which left the governor with no other option than to recommend dissolution of the House and imposition of the President's rule.

STABILITY CAN'T STOP THEM

With governor Lt Gen (Retd) J F R Jacob running the administration most efficiently with the help of just two advisors – Alban Couto and M N Buch, Goans felt more relieved during the President's rule of four months than that of the politicians. Bus still the Assembly elections held in June showed similar kind of monotonous results.

The only difference this time was that for the first time after Goa attained statehood, one single party was voted to power unlike two hung Assemblies in the past. The Congress won 21 seats, though it is hardly one additional seat in the 40-member House.

It included almost six new faces among 21 – Nirmala Sawant, Philip Neri Rodrigues, Francis Silveira, Jitendra Deshprabhu, Manohar (Babu) Azgaonkar and Venkatesth (Bandu) Desai even by winning the MGP strongholds. Most of the habitual defectors were however elected once again.

Instead, the MGP – considered to be a political workshop of defections – was wiped out from the election scene. People elected only two old faces – Ramakant Khalap and Prakash Velip. Pandurang Raut, a veteran defector, and Sudin Dhawalikar, a new entrant, were the two others.

Even the UGDP elected only the former Congressmen like Suresh Parulekar and Jose Philip D'Souza while defeating all its stalwarts like Radharao Gracias and Anacleto Viegas. In Poinguinim, Isidore Fernandes was elected independent after Congress denied him ticket.

The elections was worth remembering because of the BJP, which emerged as the main opposition parties by getting 10 of its candidates getting elected. Except Manohar Parrikar and Digambar Kamat, the rest were totally fresh faces in active politics unlike the freshers of the Congress.

Faleiro was the obvious choice to continue as the chief minister, who now says the first attempt to topple him by his own partymen was made within 25 days of his taking over the reins of power. To counter four such moves, Faleiro went on a spree of engineering defections, this time to save his government from being toppled.

People like Suresh Parulekar and Jose Philip D'Souza from the UGDP were the obvious choices. But the surprise was Ramakant Khalap, who as the union law minister had made tall statements on how such defection games should be curtailed. Prakash Velip, another MGP veteran, also joined him.

The height was however Francis D'Souza, who was elected on the Goa Rajiv Congress ticket and got merged into the Nationalist Congress Party along with another legislator – Dr Wilfred de Souza. Within 14 days, he jumped out of the ruling party along with eight other defectors to topple the Faleiro government.

With a fourth defection merely in five months, Francisco Sardinha – yet another 'loyal' Congressman – became the chief minister of a new coalition government, to prove a point that the BJP is also not an untouchable in the defection games. They are now sharing power with those who they condemned corrupt to emerge as the main opposition party in the state.

Just five months are over of the five years. The greed is spread all over. The ambitious to-be-chief ministers are now on the lookout for the BJP legislators in the market of horses while jumbo cabinets have come to stay in Goa… our beloved Goa….

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