MARGAO
The 2017 election results in minority Salcete was no different from 2007. In both these elections, the message has been loud and clear to the Congress to form the government with the people giving a clear verdict against the BJP.
In 2007, the Congress-NCP alliance romped home with ease, winning seven out of eight Assembly seats at stake (post Save Goa Front merger), with the lone Fatorda seat going to the BJP. Ten years later, the secular surge saw the BJP or its allies decimated from the taluka in the 2017 poll.
Yet, unlike in 2007 “ when half the Cabinet was from Salcete “ the taluka will have to contend with a lone minister in Goa Forward Party mentor Vijai Sardesai, indicating that power has once again shifted beyond the borders of the minority heartland in spite of the bitter fact that people had overwhelmingly voted the Congress to return to power.
Take the 2007 scenario. With the secular parties dominating the show in the 2007 election, Salcete was rewarded with as many as six Cabinet ministers, including the coveted Chief Ministerial post. The Digambar Kamat-Cabinet had five ministers in Power Minister Aleixo Sequeira, Churchill Alemao, Filipe Nery Rodrigues, Mickky Pacheco and Joaquim Alemao. Compared to their counterparts in other talukas, these ministers presided over the heavyweight portfolios, including Home, Finance, TCP, PWD, Tourism, Forests, Urban Development, Power to name a few.
Ten years later, Salcete threw up the same political equation, with the people convincingly voting for the secular forces, including the Congress, NCP and the Goa Forward party. The BJP or their alliance partners,
including Independents, could not handle the secular heat, so much so that the secular parties won all eight seats at stake, with the BJP drawing a blank.
In the normal course, Salcete ought to have played host to not one, but a host of red beacon vehicles on Tuesday after the swearing-in ceremony if one went by the 2017 mandate by the voters. Political observers here say that had it not been for Vijai Sardesai’s decision to share power with the BJP, Salcete would have got better representation in the Cabinet. “It would have been at least five berths, if not more, had Vijai supported the Congress to form the government or the Congress had moved quickly to cobble up the required number to reach the magic figure of 21,” remarked a political observer.
“Only time will tell, whether it was Vijai’s selfishness to share power with his counterparts in Salcete or the Congress failure to cobble up a simple majority ahead of the rival BJP,” he added.
This is perhaps the second time in half-a-decade that politically significant Salcete will have a lone minister in the State Cabinet. After the Congress was decimated in the minority heartland five years ago in 2012, Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar had inducted Independent MLA Avertano Furtado in the ministry, not only with the avowed objective of giving representation to Salcete, but as a reward to Shastikars for the systematic rout of the Congress in the taluka, which restricted in the tally of the Congress party to a single digit.
