the goan I network
PANAJI
Statehood attained in 1987, is cited as a proud milestone for Goa in its post-colonial history but the status also brought with it the malaise of political defections which its polity is struggling to deal with three decades later.
From the 1990 Progressive Democratic Front (PDF) experiment to Wednesday’s post-midnight switch from the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) by Deputy Chief Minister Manohar (Babu) Ajgaonkar and PWD Minister Deepak Pauskar, Goa has suffered over a dozen floor-crossings by its netas.
And each time these defections have earned its perpetrators power, office and the associated loaves and fishes with more than an ounce of logistical support from the political dispensation at Delhi with gubernatorial tangos in tandem.
The Goa legislative assembly indeed witnessed floor-crossing by its legislators in the pre-Statehood era. In fact, in the very first post-liberation term (1963-67) of the legislature, a group of six legislators led by the then Shiroda MLA, the late KB Naik, ditched the first Chief Minister Dayanand Bandodkar-led MGP. Then, in the late 1970s Dayanand Narvekar and Dilkush Desai deserted the late Sashikala Kakodkar-led MGP and embraced the then Opposition Congress (Urs). The early 1980s also witnessed a group of freshly-elected MLAs switch over in a bid to merge the ‘defeated’ MGP into the Pratapsing Rane-led ruling Congress, but the Ramakant Khalap-Babuso Gaonkar duo managed to rescue the lion then. The same term a short while later saw a reverse defection by Dr Wilfred de Souza-Luizinho Faleiro led group forming the splinter Goa Congress.
Yet none of these pre-Statehood floor-crossings resulted in any regime-change nor did they earn the actors involved any political office or trappings of power. Defections for the lure of power was more an occurrence post-Statehood, the first of which was in March 1990 when the late Luis Proto Barbosa and Churchill Alemao duo quit the Congress with six other MLAs to end the decade-long reign of Pratapsing Rane.
Even the anti-defection law (X Schedule) couldn’t shut the floodgates of defections which were opened by the Barbosa-Alemao experiment of forming the PDF government with the MGP and tacit support of the VP Singh dispensation in Delhi. When it collapsed as did the VP Singh government in Delhi, a Congress-propped Chandra Shekhar government, facilitated defections in Goa to re-install the Congress back in power.
Barring the 2012-17 term of the Assembly, every other since Statehood has witnessed MLAs switching sides to either dislodge a government or join an opponent’s government. The 1994-99 term had a set of four MLAs switch from the MGP to the Congress, two days after getting elected and even before they could take oath as legislators. The term also witnessed two more rounds of defections leading to regime changes - July 1998 (Wilfred de Souza) and in November 1998 Luizinho Faleiro.
The 1999 election may have returned the Congress with a majority of its own of 21 MLAs but the clear verdict did not clear Goa’s power politics of the taint of defection. The Luizinho Faleiro government was toppled in four months with a 10-MLA group led by Francisco Sardinha forming their own group and a government with support from the BJP.
Sardinha’s group lasted in power for just 11 months before the late Manohar Parrikar pulled the plug and himself became the Chief Minister, again aided by a series of defections. It was a term which Parrikar curtailed by dissolving the House to pre-empt defections and loss of power.
The subsequent election in 2002, returned Parrikar to power and even the amendment to the X Schedule in 2003, which required politicos to quit their membership of the House to cross floors, couldn’t halt the malaise of defection afflicting Goa’s politics. Post the amendment, it was Goa that showed the way how to defect by circumventing the new law with the case of current Canacona MLA Isidore Fernandes earning the distinction of being the first MLA to resign his membership of the House, defecting and getting re-elected in a bye-poll on the ticket of a different party in Poinguinim.
In the same term, Delhi’s shock regime change in 2004 with the UPA dethroning the Vajpayee-led NDA, triggered another wave of Isidore-like defections, when a set of five MLAs, Isidore included, quit their membership to defect and get re-elected in bye-elections for the Congress to topple the Parrikar-led BJP government.
The subsequent 2007-12 term witnessed relative political stability with Digamber Kamat earning the distinction of being the only CM post-Statehood to have completed a five-year term. Yet it wasn’t without its share of defections. Current Health Minister, Vishwajit Rane, who was an Independent quit to join the Congress and get re-elected through bypolls in Valpoi.
Also in this same 2007-12 term, the two Save Goa Front MLAs - Churchill Alemao and Aleixo Reginaldo Lourenco - also switched sides to the Congress but were saved the trouble of quitting to get re-elected riding on the merger proviso in the X Schedule.
In the current term, already three rounds of defection have occurred. First, Vishwajit Rane quit the Congress barely days after the 2017 assembly results, defected to the BJP and got re-elected through the bye-poll route. In November 2018, two more MLAs - Subhash Shirodkar and Dayanand Sopte - followed Rane to quit and are now facing the April 23 bye-poll and on Wednesday the post-midnight switchover by the Ajgaonkar-Pauskar duo merging a faction of the MGP into the BJP.
Is it the last of the current Assembly term’s quota of defections? Most unlikely, if you can catch the narrative of the loud whispers exchanged in the community of politicos.
In the current term, already three rounds of defection have occurred
First, Vishwajit Rane quit Congress barely days after 2017 assembly results, defected to BJP, got re-elected through bypoll route
In November 2018, two more MLAs -- Subhash Shirodkar and Dayanand Sopte -- followed Rane to quit; are now facing April 23 bypoll
Wednesday saw post-midnight action by Ajgaonkar-Pauskar merging faction of MGP into BJP
