Yesterday 10 Congress MLAs defected from the party and merged with the Ruling party BJP. The largest party in the Goa Assembly is now reduced to a handfull of few members. But the real question is How come the condition of the Grand Old Party became so worse?
It didn't happened in a day. There is a series of events which took place and led to this outcome in the past 28 months.
We have summaries the whole Goa Drama into the respective events. And the changing scenario of the Goa Legislative Assembly.
Hope you find it Interesting!
1. On 11th March 2017 Results of Goa Vidhan Sabha were declared in which the ruling BJP govt got a severe Defeating winning 13 of the 40 seats. While the Congress emerged as the single largest party with 17 seats. It was almost clear that the Congress would form the Govt. But the scenario changes overnight. Within a night all the other MLAs were approached by the BJP and were convinced to support BJP led Govt only if Manohar Parrikar led the Government. And hence the BJP with 13 + 8 allies claimed to form the Government. All the overnight task was undertaken by Nitin Gadkari and the Goa team. Whereas the Congress Goa Observer Digvijay Singh was had no clue about it. And on 13th the BJP formed Government in Goa.
2. On 13th of March one of the Congress MLA Vishwajeet Rane resign from the Assembly stating the he was angry with the Party Leadership for being incompetent to form a coalition even after being the Single largest party. Now the Congress at 16 and the Assembly total at 39.
3. Soon after the Resignation Vishwajeet Rane jumped in BJP and won the By-elections on BJP Ticket. Now the BJP at 14 and Congress 16.
4. Within 2 months 2 more Congress MLA's resigned from the Assembly. The Mandrem MLA, Dayanand Sopte and Siroda MLA, Subhash Shirodkar send their resignations the party heads. Now both the BJP and Congress at 14 and assembly at 38. As per the law elections are to be held within 6 months of resignation. Elections on these seats were held along with the Loksabha Elections.
5. On 14th February 2019, there was an unexpected death of the Mapusa MLA, Francis D'souza. This brought the BJP to 13 and Congress to 14.
6. The Biggest setback for the BJP was the Death of the GOA CM Manohar Parrikar. This caused a great grief to the party. The Goa Politics was void with a Strong Political Leadership. But within no loss of time Pramod Sawant was selected as the new GOA CM by the party. He successfully passed the floor test also. There were total 11 ministers which included the 2 Deputy CM.
7. On 27 march 2019, 2 of the 3 MGP MLAs merged with the BJP. As the anti-defection law is inapplicable here they just added to the tally if the BJP. Now both the Congress and the BJP are at 14.
8. There were 4 assembly seats vacant due to the resignation of 2 Congress MLAs and passing away of the FORMER CM and the Mapusa MLA. By-elections were held at these seats along with the Loksabha. On 23rd May results were declared. BJP won 3 of the 4 seats but lost the crucial Panaji seat of the Former CM to the Congress Candidate. The 2 defected Congress MLA won from Mandrem and Siroda on BJP Ticket. Now the BJP is at 17 and Congress at 15.
9. And finally 10 of the 15 MLAs defected from the Congress and merged with the BJP. Here also the anti-defection law was not applicable. Due to the incomplete and hurdles in getting the work done in the Constituency urged them to take such a step. It is important to note that this happened after the resignation of Rahul Gandhi as the Party President. The defected MLAs even blamed the weak Central leadership of the party. Now the Congress party is left with just 5 MLAs. And the BJP has doubled its tally from 13 to 27.
This is how the Political scenario in Goa has changed from a Grand old party being the largest and lastly becoming the smallest party in the Assembly.
Similarly even after loosing the election the BJP was on their toes to form and run the Government.
Now they even don't need the support of their allies to be in the Ruling Position.
We could infer this as the impact of the Centralized Leadership.
