PANAJI
Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) leader and Power Minister Ramkrishna “Sudin” Dhavalikar has sharply criticised the culture of rewarding political defectors, saying parties should give preference to loyal workers who have dedicated decades to a single organisation and ideology rather than offering tickets to leaders who switch sides for political convenience.
Speaking to reporters after a Sarkar Tumchya Dari public outreach programme at Vidyut Bhavan in Panaji on Thursday, Dhavalikar said political parties need to undertake serious introspection while selecting candidates for elections.
“Workers who have remained loyal to a party for 20 years deserve opportunities ahead of leaders who arrive from other parties shortly before elections,” he said.
Dhavalikar pointed to his own political journey as an example.
“I have remained with the MGP since 1984. Had I changed parties according to political convenience, I might have become Chief Minister long ago,” he remarked.
The veteran leader also expressed support for continuation of the MGP’s alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for the next Assembly elections, a seat-sharing formula for which is yet to be worked on by the two sides.
He said the alliance has benefited the MGP and that the party is keen to maintain the partnership and that detailed discussions with BJP's senior leaders in New Delhi will be held soon, even as he made a case for his party officially fielding candidates in its traditional strongholds such as Ponda, Shiroda and some other constituencies.
Ponda was held by the late Ravi Naik, whose son Ritesh was nominated by the BJP in April's cancelled election while Shiroda, which is being eyed by MGP president, Deepak Dhavlikar, is held by the BJP's WRD Minister Subhash Shirodkar.
These two seats are said to be the bone of contention between the two alliance partners in clinching the seat-sharing agreement.
Dhavlikar meanwhile asserted that Mandrem, currently held by the party and represented by Jit Arolkar will remain with the party.
Dhavalikar meanwhile argued that political parties should not choose candidates merely on caste considerations.
"Political loyalty, grassroots work and commitment to the party should carry greater weightage," he said, adding that such an approach will bring a positive change to Goa's political system.
Dhavalikar’s remarks come against the backdrop of Goa’s long and controversial history of political defections.
The State has witnessed some of the most frequent party-hopping episodes in India, often altering governments and electoral equations overnight and earning Goa a reputation for unstable political loyalties.
In the last two terms of the Goa legislature, entire groups of legislators, (ten in 2017-22 and eight post 2022 polls) had switched over from the Opposition Congress to the ruling BJP.
Previously in the 1990s decade, the Congress which ruled the State then, was a beneficiary of such large defections and on a couple of occasions, a victim.
