With just two months to go for the Goa assembly elections, it’s the season of leaders changing political affiliations, with almost a fifth of the 40-member Goa Legislative Assembly switching loyalties in less than three months. In Goa’s musical chairs, at least six MLAs have resigned and joined other parties and two have pledged support to parties without quitting as legislators.
Of these eight MLAs, three have joined the BJP, two have jumped ship to Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress, one has joined Aam Aadmi Party, and one independent MLA has extended support to the Congress, the latest being Aleixo Reginaldo Lourenco who submitted his resignation to the Assembly Speaker’s office on Monday moving to TMC.
While defections before polls are not new, there is a peculiar phenomenon in Goa where assembly constituencies are small and due to individual following, leaders have faith that they will be re-elected irrespective of the party they contest for, ThePrint reported.
If data is analysed, the ruling BJP is likely to be the biggest beneficiary of the defections as of the three who have joined the BJP — Rohan Khaunte, Ravi Naik and Jayesh Salgaonkar — the first two have had a series of victories in their constituencies.
While Khaunte, who was a minister in the BJP-led government till former chief minister Manohar Parrikar’s death, has had the winning edge over the BJP as an Independent candidate in 2012 and 2017 from the Porvorim constituency, Naik, a former Goa CM, has had a long journey of nearly five decades in Goa’s politics. Naik was initially with the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) till 1991, and later joined the Congress. In 2001, he engineered a split in the Congress legislative party and lent support to Parrikar to cobble together a BJP government in which Naik was deputy CM. He quit the BJP before the 2002 assembly polls and returned to the Congress.
Salgaonkar, the third MLA to join the BJP, was the MLA for Saligão from the Vijai Sardesai-led Goa Forward Party (GFP).
What has been yet another aspect of the forthcoming polls has been the growing popularity of the Trinamool Congress, which is looking to expand its footprint outside Bengal and has often spoken of national ambitions.
The first MLA to resign and defect was former Congress CM Luizinho Faleiro, who switched to the TMC in September and was given a Rajya Sabha seat by the party in November. Faleiro is a seven-time MLA from Navelim and his defection to the TMC, together with that of Churchill Alemao, will create a strong base for the Banerjee-led party to make inroads in the Catholic-dominated Salcete sub-district.
Political experts are of the opinion that the entry of Mamata Banerjee’s party may help the BJP since it will cut into the vote share of the Congress. The AAP, meanwhile, seems to be on an upswing in the state and the ruling party may stand to gain from a fractured opposition.
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