PANAJI
While the Indian National Congress (INC) may be nationally referred to as the 'Grand Old Party', in Goa though the title undisputedly can be donned by the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) as it is the only party in the State to have had representation in all the 13 terms of the Goa legislative assembly and Government for the first 17 years post-Liberation.
In the 13 general elections held since 1963, in none has the party drawn a blank and started the blocks capturing power by winning 14 of the 30 seats in the first election.
Dayanand Bandodkar was sworn-in the Chief Minister of the then Union Territory, with support from the winners in Daman and Diu, besides MLAs-elect of its ally Praja Socialist Party led by P P Shirodkar who went on to become the first Speaker.
The party went on to improve its tally in the post-Opinion Poll election of 1967 to a simple majority of its own bagging 16 seats returning Bandodkar to power, a feat he led the party to repeat yet again in 1972 with 18 seats.
Following Bandodkar's demise in 1973, the reins were taken over by his daughter Sashikala Kakodkar, who again managed to hold on to power in the post-Emergency general election of 1977 with a tally of 15 seats, exactly half the Assembly's strength of 30.
Kakodkar, however, failed to complete that term in power owing to the acrimonious defections of her law minister Shankar Lad and two other legislators -- Dilkush Desai and Dayanand Narvekar -- leading to a spell of President's Rule.
The 1980 elections which followed eventually proved to be the first that the MGP lost in Goa, managing to bag just seven of the 30 seats with Kakodkar herself defeated. It was the first time that the Congress, albeit then aligned to the faction of its Karnataka satrap Devraj Urs, romped to power.
MGPs innings in the Opposition post-1980 saw the party transitioning into a two-decades-long era under the leadership of former Union Minister Ramakant Khalap, now a Congressman.
Under Khalap, the MGP won eight seats in the 1984 election held under the shadow of the assassination of Congress' Iron Lady, Indira Gandhi, which the latter won handsomely.
It was in the election that followed in 1989, the first one post-Statehood and to a House of 40, that the Khalap-led MGP came closest to capturing power again in arguably one of the most polarized elections post the 1985-87 language agitation.
MGP was tied with the Congress at 18 seats each and both parties got the support of an Independent apiece -- Anant Narcinv Naik (Babu) backing them and Dr Carmo Pegado throwing his lot with the Congress.
What broke the 1989 election result tie was the result to two seats -- Curtorim and Velim -- which were controversially countermanded and held a couple of months later.
Francisco Sardinha and Farrel Furtado won Curtorim and Velim, leading to the return to power of a Pratapsingh Rane-led Congress government. It however was short-lived and MGP got a brief shot at power in the Progressive Democratic Front coalition government with a breakaway Congress faction led by Dr Luis Proto Barbosa.
The 1994 election, followed MGP's third era of alliance with the then nationally emerging BJP.
The tie-up with the BJP is being touted as the start of the party's decline in terms of legislative and electoral strength.
For, although it bagged a dozen seats and was still the 'big brother' of the alliance, the defeat of Khalap in 1994 laid the path for the Manohar Parrikar-led BJP to dominate the Opposition space and eventually capture power.
Nonetheless, the MGP never once went unrepresented in the House as it bagged four seats in 1999, transitioned into an era under the leadership of the Dhavlikars and won two seats each in the 2002 and 2007 elections.
Again under the Dhavlikars, it won three seats each in the 2012 and 2017 elections.
Now on the threshold of the upcoming February 14 elections, it is again unlikely to draw a blank, unless the electorate has other ideas in all of the 12 seats it is hoping to contest in alliance with the Trinamool Congress.
