BELAGAVI: The ruling BJP in Goa which has been able to bolster its position ahead of the assembly elections in the coastal state early next year, will have a challenging task in hand with the Congress party trying to forge an alliance of all the opposition parties to take the BJP head-on in the forthcoming elections.
After it formed the government by roping in legislators from other parties in 2017, the BJP has been able to consolidate its position in the last three years and several of its leaders are confident that the party will retain power by winning the forthcoming elections.
However, the opposition Congress has been in shambles in Goa despite emerging as the single largest party in the last assembly elections. Ever since the exodus of its legislators to the BJP in 2019, the grand old party is struggling in vain to come to terms even as the assembly elections are drawing closer.
Speaking to The New Indian Express, senior Congress leader and former Goa Chief Minister Digambar Kamat said that the party was working out strategies to take all the regional and opposition parties into confidence in Goa. He said that the Congress already entered into an alliance with the Goa Forward Party (GFP) which has 3 MLAs in the 40-member Goa state assembly and is keen to join hands with other parties (Trinamool Congress, AAP, MGP).
Kamat, who was in New Delhi to meet the party leaders on Saturday, said the party was trying to forge an alliance with most of the opposition and regional parties in Goa prior to the coming elections.
According to senior journalist Kishore Naik Gaonkar from Goa, the Congress party will not be able to make any impact in the elections unless it is able to associate with all the opposition parties including Trinamool Congress (TMC), AAP, GFP, MGP, etc. to take on the BJP. "The Congress has no potential leader to be projected as the CM candidate nor it has been able to ensure unity in Goa Congress unit,'' he adds.
Former Goa CM Pratapsingh Rane is the only leader with a potential to rebuild Congress in Goa, though he is a veteran. However, the Congress is still in a state of confusion, unable to set the house in order, said Gaonkar.
A section of Congress leaders feel the top national leaders of Congress, TMC and AAP should hold talks at the highest level to make a grand alliance of opposition parties possible in Goa ahead of the polls.
According to sources, the BJP will certainly win the polls if the Congress, TMC and AAP contested the elections separately, as both the TMC and AAP will eat into the Congress party's traditional vote share in most of the 40 assembly segments.
The political analysts in Goa feel the BJP is expected to field "winnable'' candidates in most of the constituencies and may drop many sitting legislators this time. "Given the electoral trend in Goa for the past several decades, at least 15 out of 40 sitting MLAs have lost when they contested to retain their seats. Keeping that in mind, the BJP may field new faces, dumping the sitting legislators,'' they added.
Several leaders in Goa BJP are not content with the way the party encouraged "outsiders'' and formed the government with their help. However, the party leaders are confident that they would be able to persuade disgruntled leaders to face the election on a positive note, sources in BJP said.
Similar to the plans of the BJP, the Congress, TMC and AAP are also expected to field popular and new faces in most of the constituencies. The assembly election next year will no doubt witness close clashes in most of the seats if new faces enter the fray in large numbers.