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Will Catholic-dominated Salcete prove the BJP’s ‘Achilles Heel’ in this Goa Assembly election?

thenews21bureau
By thenews21bureau

@the_news_21

 
Mumbai: It is a region which is known as Goa’s ‘belt of kingmakers’ and has thrown up no less than four Chief Ministers.  

Even by the standards of Goa’s mind baffling political shifts, the Catholic-dominated Salcete, with its sylvan settings framed by the backwaters of the Sal River in South Goa, has defied all political logic.  

The eight constituencies of Salcete (the name, is a Portuguese version of the Konkani ‘Saxxti’ derived from the 66 villages that originally formed its territory) has been the lynchpin on which Goa’s political fortunes have revolved. 

The region roughly has a Christian population of more than 40% in all these eight seats, this is the area which has largely remained impermeable to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the hardline elements within the Sangh Parivar, and has remained the saffron party’s ‘Achilles Heel’ in Goa. 

The assembly seats of Margao, Fatorda, Navelim, Curtorim, Benaulim, Velim, Nuvem and Cuncolim (which comprise of Salcete region) have always proved to be a tough nut to crack, for the BJP has never won more than two seats in a straight contest till now. 

It has thrice won Margao (1994, 1999 and 2002) solely because ex-Chief Minister and veteran Congressman Digambar Kamat had flirted with the saffron party at the time. Likewise, Fatorda had been won twice by the BJP’s Damodar Naik in 2002 and 2007) before being lost since then to Goa Forward Party (GFP) chief Vijai Sardesai, who has now allied himself with the Congress for the upcoming election. 

It took all the astuteness of late BJP Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar to launch the so-called ‘Mission Salcete’ gambit in 2012, A strategy whereby the BJP, although not contesting on all the eight assembly seats, would support non-Congress and independent candidates who in turn would back the BJP government in a quid pro quid.  

More importantly, late Manohar Parrikar who by toning down BJP’s ‘Hindutva’ agenda, had succeeded in making the party acceptable to the Catholic minority in Salcete and helped his party create a base in the region.  

Today minus the sagacious leadership of late Manohar Parrikar this time, the BJP under Chief Minister Dr Pramod Sawant is fielding candidates on all eight seats for the first time in this electorally crucial region. 

Salcete’s political behaviour has always been contrary to the State’s mainstream, and its tallest leaders have won contests against the tide. 

In the historic 1967 referendum on status of Goa which was the only plebiscite of its kind in Independent India held to determine the Goans’ identity, the final vote went against merging with the state of Maharashtra with the Goans choosing to remain a Union Territory.  

Here, it was the Salcete area that held the key in swinging favour for the ‘anti-merger group’ which advocated recognition of Konkani as a separate language and not Marathi.

After the Portuguese left in 1961, Goa’s first Chief Minister, Dayanand Bandodkar led Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) had mobilized the state’s Bahujan community with its demand for a merger with Maharashtra by identifying with the Marathi language.  

His rival was Jack de Sequeira, who led the United Goans Party (UGP) which chiefly represented Catholic interests and was backed by upper-caste Hindu landowners – both classes who had prospered by their alliance with the erstwhile Portuguese regime before the exit from the stage in 1961.  

Initially the pro-merger (with Maharashtra) was leading in the early rounds of the plebiscite, the anti-merger group, especially in the Salcete area tilted the scales and ensured that Goa remained a separate entity (then a Union Territory until gaining statehood in 1987) with its distinct identity. 

Stalwarts of Goa like Bandodkar and Sequeira fought battles on lofty principles, in recent decades, the electoral contests to win the hearts and minds of Salcete’s populace has now degenerated into political opportunism.  

According to an election watcher not wishing to be named remarked, “When the anti- and pro-merger issue was debated, Salcete’s electors went against the ruling MGP, supporting the UGP and the Congress. In later years, when the Congress came to power here, a sizable electorate here voted for smaller parties who generally made hollow promises to the Catholic populace here. These were United Goans Democratic Party (UGDP) and the Goa Vikas Party (GVP) which were dominated by local strongmen like Churchill Alemao and Francisco (Mickky) Pacheco.”  

Serial party-hoppers like Alemao, Pacheco and ex-Congress MLA Aleixo Lourenco are a fixture of Salcete’s politics, so too are ‘kingmakers’ like Ananta Naik and Vijai Sardesai, the Fatorda MLA whose decisive support enabled Manohar Parrikar form a BJP-led coalition in 2017.  

According to observers, elections here are fought primarily on emotive issues, with some dubbing Salcete voters, especially the Catholic subaltern class as ‘gullible’ and ready to lap up whatever any new party has to offer.  

It is little surprising then, that besides the mainstream political parties like the BJP and the Congress, new entrants in the poll fray, be it the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress (TMC) or the newly formed Revolutionary Goans (RG) party which are seeking to gain a toehold in Goa’s overcrowded political space, have all had their roots in Salcete region.

The AAP’s foundations in Goa were laid by Elvis Gomes, who later quit the Arvind Kejriwal led party in 2020 and joined the Congress, while accusing the AAP of being “a Delhi-centric party”. 

The Manoj Parab-led RG party, is likened by some to Raj Thackeray’s Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) in neighbouring Maharashtra. He has been appealing to the youth in this belt by building a narrative of Goa’s ‘sons of the soil’ being allegedly deprived of job and opportunities.  

The RG has fielded fresh candidates in all 40 Assembly seats and has created quite a stir with its promise to get the POGO (Person of Goan Origin) Bill passed in the Goa Legislature. The proposed legislation promises to give Goans their rights by focusing on jobs, government schemes, land and housing board projects. 

The TMC, too, gained an entry in Goa via Salcete after former chief minister and ex-Congressman Luizinho Faleiro (a seven-time MLA from Navelim) joined the party followed by Churchill Alemao, who is seeking re-election from his stronghold Benaulim for a fifth time.   

Both these constituencies are now being hotly contested by the AAP, which has fielded advocate Pratima Coutinho from Navelim and Captain Venzy Viegas from Benaulim. 

In 2019, by virtue of mass defection of ten Congress MLAs into the BJP fold, the saffron party gained the seats of Cuncolim, Velim and Nuvem.  

However, both BJP Minister Filipe Nery Rodrigues (Velim) and sitting MLA Wilfred d’Sa (Nuvem) left the saffron party ahead of the polls after being denied tickets, leaving the BJP with just a single MLA in the person of Clafasio Dias from Cuncolim. 

While Chief Minister Dr Pramod Sawant had stated last month that there was no need of a ‘Mission Salcete’ and had expressed confidence that his government’s development in the area would carry the day for the BJP, the party faces fierce competition in an overcrowded electoral arena.

thenews21bureau
thenews21bureau
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