ODDS STACKED AGAINST DEFECTORS

PANAJI

The factor most talked about and electoral strategies woven around in the run-up to the February 14 elections to the Goa legislative assembly was the issue of politicians shifting loyalties -- the malaise of defection.

Now, with the fate of contestants sealed and speculating the results the most attractive past time for all and sundry, the question uppermost in the minds of many political enthusiasts is: has the electorate cooked the goose of the several party hoppers in the fray?

Initial post-election reports and estimates indicate that the two ‘Babu’ DyCMs are huffing and puffing to breast the tape. 

In Quepem, Deputy Chief Minister Chandrakant ‘Babu’ Kavlekar has been stretched to the limit by his Congress challenger Altone D’Costa and in Margao, the second Deputy Chief Minister Manohar ‘Babu’ Ajgaonkar has the odds stacked against him opposite the city’s veteran and Congress’ CM hopeful, Digambar Kamat.

Tiswadi strongman, Atanasio ‘Babush’ Monserrate, is another party-hopper who finds himself in the zone of uncertainty, challenged by former Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar’s son Utpal, who is contesting as an Independent, Elvis Gomes of the Congress and Valmiki Naik of the AAP.

Monserrate’s wife Jennifer, who is the current Revenue Minister, is locked in an even tighter race in the Monserrate bastion of Taleigao against former aide Tony Rodrigues of the Congress and a spirited challenge from AAP’s Cecille Rodrigues.

Like Kavlekar, the Monserrate couple were part of the 10-MLA group that switched from the Congress to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in a midnight coup in July 2019. 

Kavlekar and the Monserrate couple are among seven of these 10 defector MLAs who are seeking re-election on the ticket of their adopted party -- the BJP. 

The other four are Nilkanth Halarnkar in Thivim, Tony Fernandes in St Cruz, Francis Silveira in St Andre and Clafasio Dias in Cuncolim and not one of them is finding favour with the pundits. 

The story is no different for three more of these ten defectors -- Filipe Neri Rodrigues (Velim), Wilfred D’Sa (Nuvem) and Isidore Fernandes (Canacona) -- all of who are not contesting on the BJP ticket, the party they defected to. 

The trio, according to multiple reports is in a struggle to make it back to the House with Rodrigues contesting on the NCP ticket, while D’Sa and Fernandes have preferred to be Independents.

Former PWD minister Deepak Pauskar, another outgoing legislator who along with Ajgaonkar defected from the MGP to the BJP, is struggling at the post contesting as an Independent after being denied the ticket in the face of the alleged cash-for-jobs scandal.

There are at least a dozen other legislators or ex-legislators who have hopped parties and are now contesting as candidates sponsored by parties other than the one they won from in 2017. Top on that list is Aleixo Reginald Lourenco, who quit the Congress to join the TMC only to quit the Kolkata-based party to seek re-election in Curtorim as an Independent. Pundits are divided on his winning chances.

Michael Lobo (Calangute), Churchill Alemao (Benaulim), Pravin Zantye (Mayem), Jayesh Salgaonkar (Saligao), Vinoda Palyenkar (Siolim), Carlos Almeida (Vasco), and Alina Saldanha (Cortalim) are the other MLAs who are contesting on a ticket of a party different from the one they had won in 2017.

Other then Lobo, on who’s chances of winning in Calangute the analysts are close to some unanimity, none of the others are certain of their fate on March 10 and have the odds against them if history of how the electorate has treated defectors in past elections is anything to go by.

Party-hoppers from the House of 40 in the 1989-94 when politicos began exhibiting alacrity to defect began with the Progressive Democratic Front government experiment were dealt with a vengeance.

Of the seven Congress MLAs who split to form the Goa People’s Party (GPP) and the PDF coalition government with the ideologically opposed MGP, only four got re-elected in 1994 -- Churchill Alemao, Luis Alex Cardozo, Mauvin Godinho and Somnath Zuwarkar. Two others -- Dr Luis Proto Barbosa and Farrel Furtado were badly defeated and the seventh, Joao B Gonsalves did not even attempt to re-contest.

In the same House, defectors from the MGP, who crossed over to the Congress after the fall of the PDF government, were dealt with even more harshly by the electorate in 1994. Sanjay Bandekar was the only one of them to manage re-election while six others, including their leader Ravi Naik, Shankar Salgaonkar, Ashok Naik Salgaonkar, Ratnakar Chopdekar, Pandurang Raut and Vinaykumar Usgaonkar, were sent home.

Ditto was the case of the defectors from the House of the 1994-99 term. Deo Mandrekar, Chandrakant Chodankar, Dr Wilfred Mesquita, Jagdish Acharya, Anton Gaunkar, Fatima D’Sa, Dr Carmo Pegado, Pandurang Bhatale and Pandu Vassu Naik were given the stick by their voters.

Dr Wilfred de Souza, Dayanand Narvekar and Subhash Shirodkar were the only three who survived and got re-elected in 1999.

In the 2002 election, nine MLAs who defected during the preceding term were shown the door -- Ramakant Khalap, Prakash Velip, Jose Philip D’Souza, Somnath Juwarkar, Venkatesh (Bondu) Desai, Sanjay Bandekar, Shaikh Hassan Haroon, Mauvin Godinho and Arecio D’Souza.

Ten other party-hoppers of the 1999-2002 term survived -- Francisco Sardinha, Dayanand Narvekar, Francis D’Souza, Francis Silveira, Victoria Fernandes, Ravi Naik, Subhash Shirodkar, Manaohar ‘Babu’ Ajgaonkar, Aleixo Sequeira and Filipe Neri Rodrigues.

In 2012, it was the turn of Churchill Alemao, who happened to be the only one among three party-hoppers of that term to lose. Alemao had merged his Save Goa Front (SGF) along with Lourenco into the Congress but was shown the door by the Navelim electorate. The other two -- Atanasio (Babush) Monserrate and Lourenco -- survived.

With history against them, it will be an excruciating wait until March 10 for the over two-dozen party hoppers to learn if the goose cooked by their voters is palatable or not.