PANAJI
The Tiswadi taluka, which accounts for five assembly segments -- Panaji, Taleigao, St Cruz, St Andre and Cumbharjua -- had thrown up a somewhat even balance at the 2022 assembly elections.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won the Panaji and Taleigao seats via the Monserrate couple, the Congress bagged an equal number picking up St Cruz with Rudolf Fernandes and Cumbharjua with Rajesh Phaldesai. The fifth seat -- St Andre -- went albeit by a whisker to the package of the election -- Viresh Borkar of the Revolutionary Goans Party (RGP).
However, between those election results and now, both the Congress winners from here -- Rudolf Fernandes and Rajesh Faldesai -- have defected to the BJP, leaving a vacuum of sorts in the anti-BJP electoral space and thus throwing up conditions favourable for a seat tie-up within the INDIA bloc.
It is also a taluka where in all the five assembly segments the INDIA candidate Ramakant Khalap polled a much greater share of votes in the recent Lok Sabha elections than what Congress candidates had polled in the 2022 assembly polls.
Nonetheless, clash of aspirations of leaders of the respective parties could make clinching a seat sharing deal in all the five seats among INDI Alliance bloc constituents a hard bargain to achieve.
In St Cruz for instance, although AAP State president, Amit Palekar, impressed with the 4,000-plus votes he polled in 2022 and would be hoping to land the seat in an alliance at 2027. However, the Congress which has never lost from here since 1994, may pitch for it with its young Zilla Parishad member Shiny Oliveira pitch-forked into the fray.
St Andre is another seat where the two main constituents, the Congress and the AAP, may both fiercely bargain for. While the Congress' claim will be based on its legacy vote-share even if it does not have a face in the constituency, the AAP will be expected to claim it for its leader Ramrao Wagh.
Similarly, Taleigao and Panaji, where the AAP has an organisational base as well as recognisable leadership faces, the tug of war with the Congress to bag the seats in seat sharing talks may be contentious.
Vote-share wise, Tiswadi overall could be good hunting ground for an united Opposition in 2027, but only if the bonhomie among the various parties witnessed at the recent Lok Sabha elections fosters and remains intact until then. Unlikely, but not impossible.
