PANAJI
The impending cross-cultural alliance between one of Goa’s oldest political parties, the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) and the latest outfit to carve out a political blitz in Goa, the All India Trinamool Congress (AITC) is about to embark on a rocky path in the run-up to the 2022 State assembly polls.
While the two parties are yet to thrash out the formal seat-sharing arrangement, the inherent reputations of both the parties as well as their respective target audiences, may well put the leaders and workers of both parties on a rocky road of challenges ahead.
While the West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee-led AITC has been accused of being anti-Hindu by the BJP “ a rhetoric which is expected to peak as the polls near “ the MGP and its leaders’ “ the Dhavalikar brothers “ open support to the controversial Sanatan Sanstha, does not really suggest a symbiotic bond between the two political outfits.
While the accusations against the AITC of being an anti-Hindu party is part of a perception battle unleashed by the BJP, the MGP’s linkages with the Sanatan Sanstha are more overt and unapologetic.
Take for example a sampler of comments made by the Dhavalikar brothers, Sudin and Deepak, over the years in support of the Sanstha, who members are linked to the brutal killings of rationalists like Govind Pansare, Dr Narendra Dabholkar, Gauri Lankesh among others.
In October 2018, Sudin Dhavalikar, then a Minister in the Manohar Parrikar-led cabinet backed the Sanatan Sanstha as a vehicle to promote Hindu culture.
“My family and I are associated with Sanatan. I don’t fund them but do give them advertisements. My family and I support all such organisations that are working to spread Hindu culture and religion,” Dhavalikar said then.
Soon after a Sanstha member Sameer Gaikwad was arrested in connection with the murder of Pansare, Sudin Dhavalikar in 2015 said: “Sanatan’s name has always been dragged into a controversy because they are pro-Hindu and if they would have belonged to any other religion then their name would not come (up)”. Sudin’s wife Jyoti was also an office bearer of the organisation.
In September 2018, Sudin’s brother Deepak, as the president of the MGP, had also said that there was a tirade against the Sanstha by vested interests.
“As Sanatan Sanstha is doing a good work, there are some people who want to project them as wrong doers. This tirade against Sanatan Sanstha will continue. (The) Sanstha teaches spirituality which is very important in today’s world,” Dhavalikar claimed.
While the association with the two parties is still brand new, the MGP’s open backing of the Sanstha even in light of revelations which came to the fore during the investigation by the Maharashtra Police into the rationalists’ killings, could pose uncomfortable moments and questions for the AITC, which swears by its secular credentials and its connect with the minority communities in West Bengal and Goa too.
The proposed MGP-TMC alliance is one of the first political alignments in Goa and a critical one, considering that it has the potential to isolate the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) as well as carve a split in the conservative Hindu vote-bank, which the BJP and MGP have nurtured over the years.
The bitter jibes by Chief Minister Pramod Sawant and State BJP president Sadanand Shet Tanavade directed at the “unnatural alliance” between the two parties is aimed at targeting these inherent disparities in their respective ideologies.
Both top BJP leaders have sarcastically claimed that by tying up with the AITC, the MGP’s lion has been forced to feed on grass.
But the BJP’s jibes ought to be judged in the context of an African proverb, which explains well the nature of lions, especially ones whose steady stream of ‘flesh’ has been curbed by the ruling party.
“When a lion cannot find the flesh to feed on, it has no choice but to eat the grass”.
