Manohar Parrikar taking over as the Chief Minister of Goa is the BJP’s masterstroke in its journey towards natural party of governance
The grand old party of India, known for its skills to capturepower, got the dose of own medicine. By the time Congress leadership could even digest the disastrous downfall in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand and celebrate the sole solace of victory in Punjab, BJP under the stewardship of Nitin Gadkari and Monohar Parrikar stole the show in Goa.
The recovery attempt to stall the swearing-in ceremony was thwarted by the Supreme Court verdict that the majority would be tested on the floor. If that was not enough, after Parrikar clearing the floor test with the support of 22 MLAs in the 40 member Assembly, the Congress is heading for internal feud. After abstaining from voting during the confidence motion, Vishwanath Rane, the emerging young leader resigned from the Assembly, accusing the leadership for being directionless.
The whole drama started unfolding immediately after the results were declared and the verdict was hung. Though the Congress emerged as the single largest party with 17 members, it was still short of 4 to reach the magic number of 21. While BJP with 13 elected MLAs swiftly came into action and established contact with everyone, except Congress.
If we analyse the results closely, the BJP did not lose the popular support and retained 32.5 percent of popular votes, just 2 percent short of 2012 results. While Congress also lost 2 percent votes and came down from 30.7 percent to 28.4 percent. With the logic of first-post past system, Congress was benefitted from division of votes between the BJP and the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP), who was an ally of BJP in earlier Government. The MGP could secure only 3 seats but garnered 11.3 percent vote share.
Much-hyped AAP could garner meagre 6 per cent votes while 39 of its candidates lost deposit.
This scenario was not new for Goa as being a small Assembly had seen the hung house multiple times. Sensing the popular mood, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari along with the most popular face of Goa Manohar Parrikar grabbed the opportunity. For the MGP, Parrikar and BJP was the natural choice. The Goa Forward Party which was a new entrant in Goa politics was ditched by the Congress in pre-poll alliance. This scenario made the path easier for the BJP. Parrikar not only presented the numbers before the Governor but also resigned from his responsibility in the Union Cabinet as the Defence Minister and fixed the time for swearing-in.
The more difficult part for the Congress was inability to choose leader and five of the elected MLAs as former Chief Ministers. None was ready to accept anybody else’s name. Some of them already under legal scanner for alleged involvement in the mining scam further created the
roadblock.
The Congress tried the legal route to stop the swearing in with party’s State in-charge Digvijay Singh crying a
foul-play. The Supreme Court refused to stop the swearing in on the basis of numbers. As the floor testing was
considered as the final verdict, Congress lost the plot completely and now heading for bigger crisis in the coastal State.
(Special Correspondent from Goa)
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