First, the Vishwajit Rane resigned on the first day of Assembly and joined the Manohar Parrikar government.
Thereafter, it was a landslide of defections.
Subash Shirodkar, Dayanand Sopte, Babush Monseratte, Jennifer Monseratte, Babu Kavlekar, Isidore Fernandes, Clafasio Dias, Filipe Neri, Wilfred D’Sa, Nilkanth Halarnkar, Francis Silveira and Tony Fernandes all joined BJP over some time.
Not just Congress, the BJP also managed to engineer a split in its former ally MGP, importing Babu Azgaonkar and Deepak Pauskar.
Towards the fag end now, the BJP has also brought Jayesh Salgaocar from Goa Forward.
The BJP has not completed the horse-trading yet. Chief Minister Dr Pramod Sawant said more than 8-9 leaders will join the party. One wonders whether BJP believes in elections or not? Or just that they are happy to lose elections and buy the MLAs later?
SURAJ NANDREKAR
Editor, Goemkarponn
For the last five years, what has been consistent in the BJP led government in Goa is the poaching of the Opposition party leaders.
The party, which got just 13 seats, eight short of a majority, managed to form the government in 2017, surpassing the Congress, which had 17 seats and needed just four for the majority.
That was clearly a case of the turtle (BJP) and rabbit (Congress) race in 2017 where the fox was the umpire.
The rabbit raced way ahead of the turtle as the race began, just like everyone thought. The rabbit got to the halfway point and could not see the turtle anywhere.
He was hot and tired and decided to stop and take a short nap. Even if the turtle passed him, he would be able to race to the finish line ahead of him. All this time, the turtle kept walking step by step by step. He never quit, no matter how hot or tired he got. He just kept going.
However, the rabbit slept longer than he had thought and woke up. He could not see the turtle anywhere! He went to the finish line at full speed but found the turtle there waiting for him.
Moral: never underestimate the weakest opponent, which teh Congress did in 2017. Digvijay Singh and Gandhis underestimated the BJP and lost the race.
Not just that, even after failing to form a government, Congress failed to keep its flock together.
First, the Vishwajit Rane resigned on the first day of Assembly and joined the Manohar Parrikar government.
Thereafter, it was a landslide of defections.
Subash Shirodkar, Dayanand Sopte, Babush Monseratte, Jennifer Monseratte, Babu Kavlekar, Isidore Fernandes, Clafasio Dias, Filipe Neri, Wilfred D’Sa, Nilkanth Halarnkar, Francis Silveira and Tony Fernandes all joined BJP over some time.
Not just Congress, the BJP also managed to engineer a split in its former ally MGP, importing Babu Azgaonkar and Deepak Pauskar.
Towards the fag end now, the BJP has also brought Jayesh Salgaocar from Goa Forward.
The BJP has not completed the horse-trading yet. Chief Minister Dr Pramod Sawant said more than 8-9 leaders will join the party. One wonders whether BJP believes in elections or not? Or just that they are happy to lose elections and buy the MLAs later?
Amidst all this, one has to really feel for the party workers in Goa. The resentment showed by the party workers after Jayesh Salgaocar’s entry is justified.
Some of these workers in Saligao had stood by the BJP even when the party did not have a candidate to contest.
Despite facing vindictive politics by some of the leaders then, the workers stood with the party and today, they are totally sidelined. As a matter of fact, the core party workers like Gajanan Tilve resigned as they felt sidelined by the leaders.
The BJP called itself a disciplined party and the party of core workers, but today it’s no different from any other party in India as it has been the outfit promoting defections pan India.
So amidst all this, where does a small party worker, who has been instrumental in bringing the party to power in Goa, go? After all this, the party leaders say they would try and convince the workers.
BJP was the party that groomed the workers from the grassroots level and not the one which just imported the leaders from another party.
It has been boasting of giving a Prime Minister to India, a chaiwallah and a core BJP worker. So why the horse-trading now? What happened to the party’s ethic and principles”
Can the BJP win elections with such a strategy? Only the people of Goa will decide…