India News Online » News Analysis » Indian Politics » 

Goa election : Cheer for Congress

	June 11, 2007

Smarting under a series of defeats in State Assembly elec¬tions, the Congress had something to cheer about when it managed to come back to power in the Goa Assembly elections, whose re¬sults became available on June 5. The party won 16 seats in the 40 member Goa Assembly while its ally, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) won three seats, leaving the alliance just two seats short of a clear majority.



While the Congress-NCP combine emerged as the single largest alliance in the fractured verdict, the BJP received a setback when it was able to bag only 14 seats, three less than what it got in the previous elections held in 2002.



Smaller parties like the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party, Save Goa Front, the UGDP and Independents won seven seats in all.



With a number of contenders in the Congress for the post of Chief Minister, there was hectic politicking in the capital Panaji before Digambar V. Kamat emerged as a consensus candidate on Thursday, June 7. He was sworn in as Chief Minister on June 8 along with three others.



Kamat was proposed as a consensus candidate for the Con¬gress Legislature Party (CLP) leadership by Pradesh Congress Committee president Ravi Naik and outgoing Chief Minister Pratap Singh Rane after the former failed to muster support from cru¬cial allies.



Kamat, who joined the Congress after playing a key role in toppling the Bharatiya Janata Party Government in early 2005, was administered the oath of office and secrecy by Governor S.C. Jamir at the Raj Bhavan.



Ravi Naik, Nationalist Congress Party leader Jose Philip D’Souza and Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party leader Ramkrishna alias Sudin Dhavalikar were also sworn in with Kamat. The four-member Cabinet is expected to be expanded this week.



The coalition Government has the support of 16 MLAs of the Congress, three of the NCP, two of the MGP and independents Vishwajit Rane and Anil Salgaoncar.



Kamat’s choice as CLP leader was dictated by the refusal of the two-member MGP and Vishwajit Rane to support Naik. Conse¬quently, the deliberations conducted by the party’s Central observers to assess the support base of Naik and Pratap Singh Rane continued till late in the night.



Naik’s last-ditch attempt to substitute the “dictating al¬lies” with rebel Congress leader Churchill Alemao’s two-member Save Goa Front was vehemently opposed by senior Congress leaders and MLAs supporting Rane.



Kamat later pledged to “protect the interests of the Goans” and went on to promise a “common man-friendly and accountable governance.”



While the Congress said that it was satisfied with the Goa results, the BJP said that they did not come up to the party expectations.



The Congress said though the pre-poll alliance failed to get a clear majority, it is in a position to provide a stable govern¬ment with the help of other groups.



The BJP which fell three seats short of its performance in the 2002 elections, said that the national executive will delib¬erate on the lapses that prevented the party from returning to power in the coastal state.



Observers say that the BJP did not get the desired results from its strategy of propping up Congress dissidents. Rebel Congress leaders, who tried to strike out on their own, got mar¬ginalised in the elections. The Save Goa Front floated by Churchill Alemao could win only two seats. Alemao had quit the Congress and resigned his Lok Sabha seat on the eve of the Assem¬bly elections to float the Save Goa Front.









Mixed bag in by-elections



Elsewhere, however, the BJP had something to cheer about in Himachal Pradesh when it retained the Hamirpur Lok Sabha seat and romped home in two Assembly constituencies in Chhatisgarh. The Congress bagged four Assembly seats in by-elections, including two in Manipur, giving it a majority in the state where it heads a coalition government.



In Himachal Pradesh, former Chief Minister and BJP leader Prem Kumar Dhumal pocketed the Hamirpur Lok Sabha seat trouncing Ram Lal Thakur of the Congress by over 80,000 votes.



Thakur, Himachal Forest Minister, quit the post owning moral responsibility for the defeat.



The BJP’s victory is seen as a shot in the arm for the saffron party ahead of Assembly polls in Himachal Pradesh early next year.



The by-election was necessitated by the expulsion of BJP MP Suresh Chandel in the wake of the cash-for-query scam.



The saffron party, however, suffered a jolt in Madhya Pra¬desh where the Congress wrested the Shivpuri Assembly seat from it.



Virendra Singh Raghuvanshi (Congress) humbled BJP’s Ganesh Gautam by 7,781 votes in the bypoll which arose after the saffron party’s Yashodhara Raje Scindia vacated the seat following her election to the Lok Sabha from Gwalior.



In Chhattisgarh, the ruling BJP wrested Khairagarh and Malkharoda Assembly seats from the Congress and the Bahujan Samaj Party.



Inder Singh Namdhari, an Independent, retained the Dalton¬ganj seat in Jharkhand defeating Anil Kumar Chowrasia of the All-Jharkhand Students’ Union by 10,191 votes.



The Congress walked away with victory at Ullal in Karnataka which saw a friendly fight between the ruling partners BJP and JD (S).



Apparently riding on a sympathy wave, U.T. Khader (Congress), son of U.T. Fareed, whose death necessitated the bypoll, defeated BJP’s Chandrasekhar Uchil by 8,032 votes.



In Manipur, Congress nominees Th Lokeshore Singh and O Landhoni Devi, wife of Chief Minister Okram Ibobi Singh, emerged triumphant in Khundrakpam and Khnagabok seats.