Former Goa chief minister Laxmikant Parsekar, who has represented Mandrem, the North Goa coastal constituency, for three consecutive terms, left the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 2022 after the party chose to field Dayanand Sopte from the seat. Both of them contested the elections and lost the seat to Jit Arolkar of the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP).
This time, Parsekar and his former rival Sopte have set aside years of bitter political feud to unite against Arolkar to reclaim Mandrem. In doing so, they are setting the stage for an escalating row between the BJP and its alliance partner, the MGP, ahead of next year’s election.
The tug-of-war over Mandrem is one among several seat-sharing disputes expected to play out as both the BJP and the Congress navigate delicate pre-poll negotiations with their regional partners.
“I leave the decision to the party,” Parsekar told HT.
Bittersweet alliance
The Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party gave Goa its first chief minister in 1963 after its integration with India in December 1961. Its dominance continued through the 1960s and 1970s until the Congress unseated it.
Faced with declining influence, the MGP first aligned with the BJP in the early 1990s as the senior partner. In the 1994 elections, the BJP won four seats - the first time that the party won an assembly constituency -- largely supported by the MGP’s voter base.
By 1999, the power equation flipped. The two parties could not reach an agreement and decided to contest separately. As the BJP expanded its tally from four to 10 seats in the 1999 elections, the MGP declined to just four seats. The MGP never recovered but has nevertheless remained part of every ruling alliance since then.
It aligned with the BJP between 2000 and 2005, with the Congress between 2007 and 2012, and then with the BJP since then. Across this period, the only pre-poll alliance with the BJP was in 2012 when the two parties came together to defeat the Congress. In 2019, despite being part of the ruling alliance, the MGP fielded candidates against the BJP in that year’s by-polls.
A first pre-poll alliance since 2012?
This time, the BJP and the MGP have said they will contest the election in an alliance, a point Arolkar notes when asked about the joint challenge from Parsekar and Sopte.
“We are currently in an alliance with the BJP and intend to fight the elections in an alliance. In such a situation, I expect that those in the BJP will come together to work for the victory of the seat on behalf of the alliance,” the MGP legislator told reporters last week.
Arolkar said anyone could ask their own party for a ticket. “I’m the MGP party legislator and will contest on an MGP ticket. MGP and BJP will contest elections together, so where is the question of going against them? We are in an alliance right now,” he added.
BJP leader and Goa transport minister Mauvin Godinho has backed Arolkar, urging people to re-elect the MGP legislator. But the remark hasn’t gone down well with colleagues in Godinho’s own party.
MGP leader Sudin Dhavalikar sought to play down a tussle over Mandrem, saying the party had conducted a survey which indicated the party was “dominant” on three seats -- Marcaim (his own seat), Pernem represented by BJP’s Pravin Prabhakar Arlekar and Bicholim held by independent Dr Chandrakant Shetye.
Mandrem wasn’t on his list. Dhavalikar reiterated his party’s commitment to the alliance with the BJP but stressed that his party hadn’t decided which seats to claim. “We are in an alliance. And our alliance will continue. Seat-sharing negotiations will take place with the BJP’s national leadership and us. And at that time we will decide. We have not made claims for any particular seats. Our party’s state executive will discuss and decide and after which we will enter negotiations,” Dhavalikar told reporters.
Pushback
Chief Minister Pramod Sawant pushed back, saying the MGP should “understand its limitations”.
“MGP is our partner in the NDA even though they weren’t with us during the 2022 assembly elections and went along with the TMC. It didn’t work out for them and they could win only two seats. They have also realised their strength is limited to two seats. They shouldn’t needlessly conduct surveys and would be wise to join us in an alliance,” Sawant told a local television channel.
Dhavalikar hit back, reminding the chief minister that the party has “at least 3,000 votes in each constituency”.
BJP state president Damodar Naik insisted that relations between the two allies were on track. “There is no ill will between anybody…The right decision will be taken at the right time. Everything is just speculation at the moment,” he said.