PANAJI
A cryptic comment by Revenue Minister Atanasio (Babush) Monserrate that Santa Cruz constituency will rewrite history and have a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLA this time has raised eyebrows in political circles.
"The BJP has never won the Santa Cruz seat. This time, St Cruz will have a BJP MLA. That is for sure," Monserrate said while speaking to reporters.
Interestingly, Rudolf Fernandes, the current MLA of St Cruz, is in the BJP although he had won the seat in the 2022 elections on the Congress ticket. He was part of the eight Congress MLAs group that defected to the BJP in September 2022, less than six months after the elections.
Monserrate's comments are being seen as an attempt to flex his political heft and subtle messaging to the saffron party's leadership much like his stance in the run-up to the 2022 elections.
Then, Monserrate, who had faced his first electoral debacle in the 2017 election cycle from Panaji but made a mid-term comeback in the by-election held post Manohar Parrikar's death, had defected to the BJP. He had predicted that the saffron outfit would win all five assembly seats of Tiswadi in 2022, but only two were won -- his own Panaji and Taleigao where his wife Jennifer retained the seat.
Cunbharjua and Santa Cruz were won by the Congress, while in Sant Andre, Viresh Borkar of the Revolutionary Goans Party (RGP) was the winner.
Nonetheless, Monserrate does wield influence in Santa Cruz and had won the seat but on a Congress ticket back in 2012, despite a saffron wave election that year.
