Goa’s flavour of the season: 7 ex-CMs, countless cynicism

Perhaps, the politicians and parties may be wasting their breath. This election has left most voters across Goa’s 3,500 sq kms cold. Of Goa’s 40 legislators, seven have already been chief ministers at some point or the other. Except for a core group within the Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party, everyone has switched loyalties for a Cabinet post or for the big job.

In all, 210 contestants are contesting for 40 seats. Of the 39 candidates contesting on BJP tickets, 10 have defected from either the regional Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party or the Congress. A few like Industries Minister Sheikh Hasan Haroon who defected to the BJP from the Congress could not jump back in time as Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar abruptly dissolved the state legislature.

Another, Tourism Minister Philip Neri Rodrigues, is contesting as an Independent candidate supported by the BJP, but he’s also given a written assurance to the NCP of his support in the future if he manages to win. To top it all, Rodrigues even claimed at the fag end of his tenure in a BJP led Government that he wasn’t a BJP member at all!

But what really took the cake was the BJP’s deputy chief minister Ravi Naik. A veteran of several governments, he jumped to the Congress fold even though he was given the BJP ticket for his home constituency, Ponda. Before defecting to the BJP, Naik was the Congress Party’s leader of the opposition in the Goa assembly.

Naik was joined by several ‘‘Congressmen at heart’’. In all, the Grand Old Party has given tickets to 12 defectors, five of whom were ministers in the Parrikar government till four weeks before the elections. As an embattled Parrikar accused them of corruption, the Congress Party is giving them clean chits. ‘‘We have scrutinised their records thoroughly. Neither any of them has been chargesheeted by the court nor convicted for any scam,’’ AICC General Secretary and Congress observer Ramesh Chennithala said.

The ruling BJP isn’t seen as the White Knight with a mission to clean up Goan politics any more. Like the Congress, it split rival parties to form the Government and has now been broken in turn. While the Congress has welcomed back its prodigals who propped up the BJP government on the grounds that they are ‘‘winnable’’ candidates, since, explains Chennithala, they have to keep the ‘communal’ BJP out post Gujarat. ‘‘A clear cut message has to go to the whole nation that people condemn and reject such communal and criminal elements,’’ adds Jagdish Tytler, one of the several Congress luminaries camping in Goa.

Though the Congress is the only party contesting all 40 seats, its hopes of seriously challenging the BJP have received a threat from the Nationalist Congress Party. Talks between both the parties to arrive at a seat adjustment failed with former Chief Minister and NCP leader Wilfred D’Souza walking out in protest. The NCP is contesting 20 seats. Goa’s two regional parties, the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party and the United Goans Democratic Party, are contesting in 25 and 10 seats respectively. Both have fielded rebels from the Congress and the BJP and are expected to eat into the vote share of the two national parties.

The choice, then, for the people of Goa appears to be not for a good or a better candidate, but for the least defection-friendly of them all.