In the euphoria over celebrating the 60th birthday of the tallest political leader from Goa over the past two decades who, proudly for the BJP, is from among its ranks, the party in power needs to be wary of hubris. Indeed, we will go a step further and suggest that this would be an apt occasion for the BJP to begin an honest introspection of its performance and assess clinically its hits and misses after the thumping mandate of 2012 when the party was led by Manohar Parrikar.
If the above exercise is undertaken now, and not tomorrow or the day after, and conducted properly, it may yet lead to course correction; if not, abandon hope all ye that enter here!
Travel around Goa, from the coastal belts to the hinterland, and at every roadside tavern or gada the conversation is slowly veering around to the prospects of the major players in the Assembly poll scheduled for early 2017. And there is near unanimity, even among die-hard BJP supporters, that the party will shed seats pretty copiously from the 21 it managed in 2012 if elections were to be held today. The BJP’s internal soundings also reportedly bear out this assessment; the difference is only one of degree with the pessimists saying the party will be lucky to end up with 12-14 seats and optimists claiming things aren’t that bad and 15-plus seats are gettable. The sliver of hope, though just that and nothing more, for the BJP is that a year or so is a long time in politics and they have a last throw of the dice to alter this rather dire electoral prognosis.
To the BJP’s credit, the party think-tank has at least understood that there is a problem both of perception and of its performance on the ground; the main Opposition remains clueless and seems to believe that there is some sort of correlation between the problems of the ruling party and its own stock rising from the basement as if on a hot-air balloon, which is sheer fantasy.
So here’s what the BJP needs to do pronto:
• Announce a timeline for the completion of major infrastructure projects, implementing RP 2021, securing the continuance of sustainable mining, cleaning up the tourism sector and setting up model high-tech manufacturing and IT/IT-es zones. On the ground and before March 2017.
• Decide, and quickly, who will be leading the party into the Assembly election and announce it. Learn from the Bihar and Delhi results. And get your alliances sorted early.
• Come up with a plan to counter its opponents who are attempting to polarise one community, aided and abetted by rumor-mongering on social and traditional media platforms and community newspapers.
• Resist the potentially electorally beneficial temptation to indulge in counter-polarisation, because a government is of all the people including those who didn’t vote for it and even those who have an entrenched bias against it. Demolish the argument but don’t be vindictive towards its proponents because that will make them martyrs.
• Above all, forget about championing Mission Salcete or Mission Core Base or Mission What-have-You, these are just electoral tactics and all parties including the BJP will do what they must to get their own support-base out and split the Opposition vote. Instead, give the State an aspirational, if not inspirational, start with an electoral strategy that showcases a cogent, costed and implementable Vision for One Goa.
