The myriad analysis on Tuesday’s results of the elections to the Corporation of the City of Panaji will throw up many perspectives and angles. The ambitious Atanasio Monserrate, could come up with 17 wins in the corporation for his panel, admittedly a disappointing result for the Santacruz legislator, who was talking in terms of his panel picking up 20 and even 25 seats. As many as three seats were with very slim margins of single digit votes. The BJP backed candidates notched 13 wins, while the Congress drew a blank.
Elections can be uncanny to predict, and even seeming winners may see negative patterns in the voting. It is telling then that Monserrate himself made the comment that winners count seats, while losers calibrate their vote share. In not reaching his targets, the legislator alluded to the Congress-backed candidates eating into the vote share, splitting the anti-BJP votes and was even quoted as saying the Congress acted as a B team of the BJP, in the three way contest.
From all indications, the Corporation of the city of Panaji election, coming as it does eleven months prior to the expected 2017 assembly poll, was considered crucial. It was especially critical given Monserrate’s ambitions to expand his reach into other assembly segments in the taluka of Tiswadi. By winning the Corporation in the capital city of Panaji, he has proved his metier in this long term BJP-held seat. A more convincing win would have helped buttress more ambitious expansion plans to foray into Cumbarjua and St Andre. The last time he proved his influence in Panaji, to the detriment of the official Congress candidate in the recent by election, it led to his expulsion from the Congress. So it is no surprise that the Congress move to contain his Tiswadi ambitions was led by the Cumbarjua Congress legislator Pandurang Madkaikar.
With little hope of making a dent given the last minute entry into the fray, Madkaikar was telling media he was happy that the Congress has begun to make some small entry into the area, where past election results have shown they have little presence as a party. No doubt, given his panel’s performance in Panaji, besting the ruling party in a seat that it currently holds, will lead to renewed demands that the Taleigao strongman contest from Panaji in the 2017 poll. Some losses in his Taleigao stronghold and elsewhere has tempered the win, from all indications.
For the BJP, Tuesday’s results can hardly be heartening, coming just as the party marked four years of its term in office with an exercise to airbrush its image in public perception. But churnings in the Congress were quicker to start, with Vishwajit Rane saying the party had made a mistake by venturing into a segment they had no base in and perhaps in its expulsions. His was a strong pitch for opposition unity to jointly confront the BJP. That viewpoint is expected to garner more vocal traction and rumblings from within and without, given the generational tussle within the party. The younger leaders have been arraigning themselves into a bloc for a while now. Vijai Sardessai’s Goa Forward has known fans within the Congress.
At a deeper level, Tuesday’s results have reinforced the electorate’s enchantment with strong satraps, that can ensure delivery, even sans the backing of a political party. Hard economic calculations --- facilitate licenses, managing permissions and obstructions and opposition, fixing jobs and dispensing largesse is the new socio-political economics of electoral management and wins. While the political party is dispensable at panchayat, municipal and corporation polls, assembly elections become a different beast. Authoritarian, hierarchical, ideology driven parties have the advantage of running tighter, more disciplined ships. In contrast, the Congress has found itself in a constant tussle and negotiation with many of its leaders who command independent influence. There have been the Alemaos in the past. The late Dr Wilfred de Souza had many breaks from the party. The phenomenon of personality based pockets of influence has for long held the key to Goa’s electoral arithmetic and it has dovetailed neatly into emphasis on winnability taking precedence over ideology. Which is what has given Panaji’s corporation election results a far broader and deeper significance --- and certainly holds more significance for its main political winner.
The political calculus will be out now to assess the deeper meaning of the wins. Some analysts suggest that inroads into Taleigao will mean the legislator will have to limit his focus to protecting home turf that is slipping. For the moment, Babush Monserrate has proved his point in this poll, but not to the extent he would have liked to, contained as he was by the three-way contest and the last minute entry fashioned by the Congress’ Pandurang Madkaikar. For Ponjekars, seeking better civic services and facilities, blockaded as some of these were by some ugly politics --- the political chess game holds less meaning. Performance in the immediate future by a working corporation is all that matters to the citizen. But will that happen beyond the soundbytes given to media?
Pamela D’Mello is an independent candidate
