The verdict is out. The BJP romped home with three seats at the bypoll while losing one. And in the Lok Sabha it had to be content with the North Goa seat while conceding the South to Congress. The results may have gone the BJP way, but it gave some meaningful insights on the voting patterns and public perceptions.
Firstly, defections were not punished, the way they were perceived to be at the outset. The campaign pitch of the opposition that politics of defections will be stamped out had very few takers. In fact, both candidates of the BJP who switched sides “ Subhash Shirodkar and Dayanand Sopte sailed through, albeit in contrasting margins. The split in votes between Congress candidate in Mandrem, Babi Bagkar, and Independent candidate Jeet Arolkar helped Sopte’s cause of winning comfortably. Shirodkar managed to scrape through by a slender margin in his stronghold of Shiroda where a pitched battle was fought against the MGP candidate Deepak Dhavalikar. The narrow margin of 76 votes is a telling blow to Shirodkar and the BJP, both of which had to literally engage full government machinery to fight the MGP’s first-timer in the constituency.
In Mapusa, the legacy and sympathy attached to Joshua D’Souza paid off for the BJP. Congress candidate Sudhir Kandolkar gave the saffron brigade a run for their money. The BJP leadershp, including Chief Minister Pramod Sawant himself had to literally camp in Mapusa in the last two days before polls to ensure that the contest doesn’t go out of hand.
The Panaji bypoll narrative is distinctly different from the other three. The capital city while voting for a change has refused to go by the Manohar Parrikar footprint. The failure of the BJP to address key issues in Panaji over the years boomeranged and the much-talked about connect of Sidharth Kuncolienkar with Ponjekars failed to materialise. Also, the insecurity of women plank which the BJP chose to target Congress nominee Babush Monserrate paled out against the real issues that the city was grappling with. The GSM and AAP candidates eating into BJP and Congress votes respectively in Panaji proved to be a myth with both returning with below par numbers. Perhaps, at hindsight, BJP may be ruing their decision to go with Siddharth since their legacy and sympathy experiments have being paying off.
The bypoll results come as a big jolt for the Congress which was banking on a positive result to take its ambition of power forward. The much-talked about resentment against the ruling failed to show at the bypolls and stability of the government got a thumbs-up instead. The electorate has embraced leaders in the hope of welfare and development. The message is loud and clear: non-performance is going to be punished, people want development. The only caveat is money power plays a most crucial role in tight electoral battles.
All said and done, Sawant passes his first test as chief minister. These wins will give a big boost to his morale as the BJP moves in a comfort zone of being the single largest party. It remains to be seen how he makes his moves, now that he has promises to keep, especially to the three newly-elected candidates.
