Political messaging in Goa hit a new low over the weekend as political parties escalated a war of words with the arrival of TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee and Rahul Gandhi to shore up their party’s chances in the state. It was all fun and games until the BJP, perhaps worried by the headlines the Mamata Banerjee was grabbing, decided to hit back and unleash known troublemaker Tejashwi Surya, the party’s MP from South Bangalore to come to the state and disrupt her free run with the press.
And Surya did what he was sent to do. During his brief visit to the State, Surya called on BJP party men to ensure that the party wins with a full majority because “we cannot let Mamata Begum come inside the land of Parshuram and the land of Shivaji Maharaj.” No one disputes the freedom of each party to choose whatever messaging they want to take to the voters, but until now the political discourse has been decidedly civil and focused on what each party can deliver if elected to power and stressed on the brilliance of individuals like that of Manohar Parrikar of the BJP to win elections.
No doubt that in the past the Congress and other ‘secular’ players have tried to portray the BJP as a ‘communal’ party, the BJP has managed to defeat that narrative through a discourse of development without hitting back with communal language. It appears that a change is now on the horizon. With its decision to deploy Surya, the party has decided to abandon that narrative and draw a wedge between Goan communities.
Contrast this with the messaging that both Rahul Gandhi and Mamata Banerjee delivered during their respective visits to the State.
The BJP has also harped on the issue of political tourism claiming that Mamata Banerjee, Arvind Kejriwal and even Rahul Gandhi of the Congress are in Goa for political tourism. It appears Tejaswi Surya failed to register the irony of calling others visiting the State as political tourists when he himself could very well qualify under the category of a political tourist. But that didn’t stop him from calling the Congress, which has a longer presence in the State than the BJP, a political tourist. Perhaps Rahul Gandhi was not far off the mark when he said that this was a fight “about defining what Goa is going to become.”
One wonders whether BJP’s tallest leader Manohar Parrikar would have allowed a provocateur like Tejaswi Surya to set foot in Goa to campaign for the BJP knowing how much Parrikar took pride in leading a party that included representatives from all communities. It is important that Goans come together and oppose such hateful language irrespective of which party they owe their allegiance to.
