Anil Anand
Numbers is what matters in a democratic polity. Beginning with the number of seats a particular political party intends to contest, the number of seats it ultimately wins and whether it reaches the magic number or secure a majority to form the Government or not. That is true both in the cases of Lok Sabha and as well as state assembly polls.
However, the term number has an added significance if a state has more Lok Sabha seats- as Uttar Pradesh (UP) 80, Madhya Pradesh, 29, Maharashtra, 48, Bihar 40, Tamil Nadu 39. The more the number of Lok Sabha seats a state has the more stakes a political party can have in forming a Government or being part of it at the Centre. That is why UP is the most important as it also has a 400 member legislative assembly seats meaning thereby sending a significant number of Members to Rajya Sabha as well.
These figures might only reflect academic interest but what if the numbers’ theory- as enunciated above- is turned upside down. Meaning thereby that instead of states with more Lok Sabha seats lose out to states with bare minimum seats. This phenomenon that started during 2017 set of state assembly elections has got more pronounced in the current, 2022, instalment of polls.
The match is between UP that elects highest number of Lok Sabha MPs-80-, and the small and beautiful coastal state of Goa with merely two Lok Sabha constituencies. The significance of UP is understandable as it plays a significant role in power play with so many MPs and MLAs but that of Goa needs to be understood in the current context of politics.
The question that begs for answers, and is more relevant currently than ever before, is that why Goa with 40-member assembly, has become a favoured destination particularly of the regional political parties or their emerging leaders eager to break new ground in quest of spreading their area of influence. What role can a small state with two Lok Sabha and 40 assembly seats play to elevate a leader to the next level? Any why of all states Goa?
First it was the newly born Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) which riding on the back of Anna Hazare’s anti-corruption movement had stormed to power in Delhi, looked towards Goa in 2017 though it drew a blank in that outing. Decidedly, the over-ambitious AAP chief and Delhi chief minister, Arvind Kejriwal, ahead of 2019 Lok Sabha elections and nursing ambition to have a go at the Prime Minister’s chair, wanted to spread his feet outside Delhi perhaps forgetting he lost to Narendra Modi in Varanasi in 2014. It is another matter that he did not contest 2019 general election
So, Goa perhaps was one of the laboratories for him. Punjab was understandable due to its vicinity to Delhi and Mr Kejriwal’s home state Haryana. Why far off Goa once again in 2022?
Come 2022 and the history seemed to be on course to repeat itself. Mr Kejriwal and his AAP are staying put and once again nurturing the ambition to form Government in the coastal state without having opened the account on earlier outings.
But he is not alone this time around. Fresh from her resounding victory in West Bengal and retaining power after defeating the mighty BJP (read Modi-Shah combination) in the assembly elections, the Trinamool Congress chief and chief minister, Ms Mamta Banerjee also landed on the shore of Goa to test waters with the same motive, as Mr Kejriwal, to acquire a pan-India image.
Unlike Mr Kejriwal, it is her first electoral foray into Goa. Although the former has shown resilience and shown courage to contest election again after successive defeats in the past, the Trinamool Congress already seemed to be feeling the heat even before a vote has been cast. After initial tirade launched by Ms Banerjee against the Congress, in sudden change of heart her party wants an alliance with the grand old party in the name of defeating BJP.
Apart from becoming an abode for the regional parties such as AAP, Trinamool Congress and Shiv Sena and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) from nearby Maharashtra, yet another important corollary of Goa syndrome is that all these players on their political expansion plan seem to have another agenda- to corner the Congress and prevent it from becoming pivot of opposition unity. The AAP did it in its own way earlier on, the Trinamool Congress, Shiv Sena and NCP are doing it now.
And everything is being done and justified in the name of opposition unity to defeat Narendra Modi in 2024. There is no doubt this should have been the plank of opposition unity but that does not seem to be the case in what Goa is currently representing.
Before looking into this motive of “opposition unity”, a quick review of the 2017 assembly results. The Congress had emerged as the single largest party with 17 seats and just one short of winning the majority, followed by BJP’s 13. The NCP and two local parties had one each with Shiv Sena a naught and the TMC did not exist.
The subsequent political manipulations and mishandling by Congress leaders led to BJP forming the Government. Five years in the hibernation and series of desertions, Congress is still a force to reckon with and a contender for power.
It was rather bizarre for Ms Banerjee to land in Goa with leaders and prospective candidates imported from West Bengal to corner the Congress rather than BJP. All her utterances and actions pointed to this direction. She was followed, though little later, by Shiv Sena and NCP.
It looks none of the three parties was serious about opposition unity to contest the assembly elections. Had they been so, the first and foremost effort should have been from the day one to negotiate on the basis of 2017 poll performance rather than pinning down the Congress and demanding a lion’s share of seats.
Given the backdrop of its role in Delhi and already strongly pitted against the Congress in Punjab, it was unlikely that Mr Kejriwal should have shown inclination to work with Congress or the latter agreeing. However, Ms Banerjee could have played a stellar role, of course with the guidance of Sharad Pawar with whom she has been of late breaking bread and had jointly berated Rahul Gandhi, to create a model of opposition unity in the serene environment of Goa.
The opportunity is all but lost. But not the hope if they do not squander such opportunities in the coming months.
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