A day after the Congress said it was confident of winning a majority in the recently concluded 40-seat Goa Assembly election, the ruling BJP rubbished the former’s claims by dubbing them as “mere daydreaming”.
Goa BJP president Sadanand Shet Tanavade on Wednesday said the Congress leaders were “nervous” and hence were uttering all kinds of “irrelevant statements” while claiming that the large voter turnout indicated that the Goan public was allegedly rooting for the BJP again.
“The massive response by the people on February 14 [voting day in Goa] is indicative that the BJP will once again form the government in the State,” he stated.
‘Vague conclusions’
Mr. Tanavade remarked that Goa Pradesh Congress Committee President Girish Chodankar and Leader of Opposition Digambar Kamat had come up with allegedly “vague conclusions” based on the voter turnout.
A relatively robust voter turnout (78.94%) on February 14 has led non-BJP parties like the Congress and the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress (TMC) to claim that the polling had allegedly gone in their favour.
Despite the overall turnout being lower than that of the 2017 Assembly election (82.56%), the Opposition parties have claimed that the turnout was an indication that the Goan people were fed up of 10 years of BJP rule and had turned out in large numbers to vote out the incumbent party.
While the Congress has claimed that the BJP would not cross single-digits, the TMC, dismissing pre-poll perceptions of a dismal performance, has expressed confidence that it would win a whopping 12 of the 40 seats and that its ally – the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) – would bag seven seats.
‘Anti-incumbency wave’
Goa Congress desk in charge Dinesh Gundu Rao said there was a massive “anti-incumbency wave” against the BJP, attributing this as the reason for the robust voter turnout. “I think the results are going to be very favourable for the Congress and we will secure an absolute majority. This is what our people on the ground are also telling us,” he said.
The highest voter turnout was recorded in Chief Minister Pramod Sawant’s Sanquelim constituency. It recorded a 89.61% turnout – a jump of five percentage points from 2017.
This fact has been seized upon by the Congress and a number of pollsters as a sign that the going may prove rough for Mr. Sawant, who is seeking re-election for a third time from Sanquelim.
Minuscule electorate sizes
Given the minuscule electorate sizes of the 40 constituencies (25,000-27,000 being the average electorate size), the voting figures have left analysts and pollsters divided, with some expressing a cautious view that the BJP may not have it as easy as they think.
In 2017, it was the Congress that emerged as the single largest party, winning 17 seats, while the BJP even then managed to win only 13. However, the Congress’s dithering in forming a government resulted in the saffron party under the late Manohar Parrikar to form the government with the support of the Vijai Sardesai-led Goa Forward Party (GFP) and the MGP, along with independent leaders like ex-Porvorim MLA Rohan Khaunte.
The BJP’s ranks were bolstered after the defection of 10 Congress MLAs in July 2019. This time, the saffron party, bereft of Parrikar’s leadership, is ranged against an array of Opposition parties besides the Congress, which includes the TMC, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), the GFP, the MGP and the Revolutionary Goans (RG), which is considered a ‘wild card’ in the outcome.
