BJP after Manohar Parrikar

Of all the 4 small states going to the poll in February- March 2022, Goa election was unique for multiple reasons. For ruling BJP, the challenge was to overcome anti-incumbency, to get a single party majority which the party has been eyeing but couldn't get in last ten years. But perhaps the biggest challenge was to set the party rolling after the untimely demise of Manohar Parrikar.

 

For Congress, it was the state where they could hope to snatch power by defeating BJP. They were the single largest party going to poll with 17 seating MLAs, just 3-4 seats away from majority.

 

The relative prosperity of the small State, the significant presence of Christian votes, the apparent leadership vacuum were perhaps the factors which attracted TMC and AAP parties to the battleground.

 

The constituencies are small, it takes shifting of just about 4-5 thousands of votes to affect the outcome and therefore candidates become as important as parties.

 

 

 

BJP performance 

 

As an overall result, BJP performance, heavily aided by Maharashtra BJP leader Devendra Fadanvis went beyond past benchmarks. It is now single largest party with 20 seats, just 1 seat away from majority and hence sure to form a Goverment. It is only a segmented analysis which shows the nuances.

 

Of the 13 seats in last assembly, BJP retained 7 and lost 6, 4 of them to Congress. It snatched away 8 seats from Congress and 2 from MGP. The tables show BJP performance in the 36 constituencies it contested in 2017. BJP candidates were not there in 2017 in Priol, Nuvem, Benaulim and Navelim. Of these four constituencies, it won 2 Priol and Navelim.

 

 

 

What these figures not reveal is the impact of candidates shifting between parties. All parties actively wooed the influential candidates. The classic case is of the BJP candidate couple Atansio J. Monserrate from Panaji and his wife Jennifer from Taleigao. Both were in different parties in last election, switched over to BJP and won. This created some organisational tension within BJP as Utpal Parrikar, son of late Manohar Parrikar was claimant of Panaji seat. He rebelled and lost by a narrow margin. All parties faced such internal tensions. The difference with BJP is that being the ruling party, the issue does not end once the elections are over, but will continue to reflect in the selection of Chief minister and sharing of other power structure.

  

As for Congress, TMC and AAAP the story is mainly about much bragging and poor performance on the ground level. It will be covered in our upcoming article series of newsbharati election tracker.