BJP TODAY

February 16--28, 2005 - Vol. 24, No. 4

Instability: A Congress gift to Goa

Sixteen chief ministers in eighteen years! That tells the story of how, ever since Goa was conferred statehood on May 30, 1987 by delinking it from the other Union Territories of Daman and Diu, the Congress party has been playing ducks and drakes with democracy in this small state.

The BJP, which formed a government of its own for the first time only in 2000, is proud that it was able to provide a government that was not only the most stable, but also the cleanest, the most dynamic and the most people-oriented. Shri Manohar Parrikar, who was illegally dismissed by Governor S.C. Jamir on February 2, has the distinction of being the longest-serving chief minister in Goa.

How has the political culture in Goa been rendered so unstable? Let us look at Goa's history.

Goa is a tiny state blessed with incredible natural beauty -- sun, sand, sea and greenery. For four hundred years it was ruled by the Portuguese, whose main agenda was conversion of Goans to Christianity. The Portuguese did not leave Goa voluntarily after India won independence in 1947. A determined indigenous struggle for liberation and merger with India, combined with the stationing of the Indian Army on the borders of Goa, saw the collapse of the Portuguese rule in Goa on December 19, 1961.

Subsequently, Goa, Daman and Diu became a Union Territory with Shri Dayanand Bandodkar, belonging to the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP), becoming its first Chief Minister in 1963. During his 10-year-rule, he was regarded as a visionary and philanthropic leader. After his demise, the reins of the Union Territory were taken over by his daughter Smt. Shashikala Kakodkar. She provided a stable government from 1973 to 1979. That is when the Congress party at the Centre began to play its game of destabilizing non-Congress governments in Goa by engineering defections. Kakodkar's government was toppled with defections from the ruling MGP by the then United Goans Party with the active support of the Congress high command in Delhi. Lo and behold, the entire United Goans Party merged with the Congress party overnight!

In January 1980, Shri Pratapsingh Rane became the Chief Minister of Goa, Daman and Diu for the first time. The political culture of Goa was sent into a tailspin by arbitrarily doubling the number of constituencies. A tiny Goa, which is smaller than a district of Maharashtra, was to have 40 MLAs, two Lok Sabha seats and a Rajya Sabha seat. Elections were held and Shri Rane was elected for a five-year term. But he fell a victim to the other pastime of Congressmen: when they are not busy conspiring to pull down a non-Congress government, they take to destabilizing their own government in Goa. When Rane had gone for a short pilgrimage to Kolhapur in Maharashtra, 'defections' were engineered leading to the installation, in March 1990, of a government headed by Shri Churchill Alemao. This, however, was only a stop-gap arrangement. Churchill Alemao stepped down to pave the way for Dr. Luis Proto Barbosa.

Soon the Barbosa government was overthrown by Shri Ravi Naik, who defected from the MGP to the Congress, to become the chief minister. Funnily enough, he got himself admitted in a hospital for a month to avoid facing the trial of strength on the floor of the House! That gave him enough time to cobble together the necessary numbers and yet avoid violation of the Anti-Defection Law introduced by the Rajiv Gandhi government. The tug-of-war within the Congress forced Shri Ravi Naik to hand over the reins in April 1991 to a senior leader of the Congress party, Dr. Wilfred D'Souza. An eminent doctor, he worked meticulously to grow into a mass leader in his own right with the backing of the majority community. By this time Rajiv Gandhi passed away and Shri Narsimha Rao became the Prime Minister of India. Shri Naik again began his machinations to topple the D'Souza government. However, he had the anti-defection sword dangling on his head on account of a petition filed by an MGP MLA, supposedly funded by D' Souza himself. The Goa bench of the Bombay High Court disqualified Shri Naik from membership of the legislative assembly. And this saw Dr. Wilfred D'Souza of the Congress taking over the mantle of the Chief Minister of Goa in May 1993.

As palace coups go, what Governor Bhanu Prakash Singh did in 1994 truly takes the cake. This 'Maharaja' from an erstwhile princely state had played a major role in installing Dr. D'Souza as the Chief Minister. In return, he expected the chief minister to pay obeisance to him as to a Maharaja. When Dr. D'Souza failed to do so, Bhanu Prakash Singh dismissed his government and installed Shri Ravi Naik as the Chief Minister. This arbitrary action of the Governor created such a storm that not only was he recalled by the President of India, but Dr. D'Souza had to be re-installed as the chief minister.

The BJP was not a force to reckon with in Goa till then. In the 1994 elections, which saw Shri Rane heading yet another Congress government, the BJP formed an alliance with the MGP, which was then the major opposition party, and won four seats. It was a time when the grand old man of Goan politics, Dr. Wilfred D'Souza, was feeling suffocated working as deputy chief minister under Shri Rane. With the help of the BJP and the MGP, he was able to put together a coalition under his stewardship in July 1998. Within four months, the Congress toppled this government and installed Shri Luizinho Faleiro as the chief minister. His government too fell a victim to the game of defections. In the fresh elections held next year, the Congress secured a clear majority and Shri. Luizinho Faleiro again became the chief minister. He tried to consolidate his position by getting five opposition MLA to join the Congress. This made the original Congress MLAs feel ignored and their revolt led to the formation of the Francisco Sardinha government in November 1999.

During this long period of political turmoil, the people of Goa could see that only the BJP held out hope for providing a stable and purposive government. By now, the Vajpayee Government had returned to office in Delhi for the second time. Therefore, in the Assembly elections in October 2000, the people gave their mandate to the first BJP-led coalition under the leadership of Shri Manohar Parrikar. The Congress party, however, did not halt its destabilization efforts. Shri Parrikar dissolved the House in eighteen months and sought — and got — a fresh mandate from the people in the 2002 Assembly elections. The BJP secured 17 seats, and with the support of new allies, was able to form what was widely regarded as the best government in the history of Goa.

With the UPA government assuming office in New Delhi in May 2004, the Congress was back to its conspiratorial ways in Goa. The conspiracy succeeded, at least temporarily, on February 2 with Governor S.C. Jamir acting as an accomplice. The rest is a still-unfolding story.
(By a Special Correspondent)