Caste and Creed in the 12th Goa Assembly By Miguel Braganza
The people cast their votes -- a full 82% of the eligible voters exercised their franchise to elect a healthy government on 03 March, 2012 -- and the results have been declared on 06 March, 2012, with the BJP as the clear winner. Thanks to the Goa Doot (the Marathi newspaper, associated with the BJP) we have the statistics that is rarely seen in print in the English-language newspapers. Interestingly not a single Bhandari candidate of the Congress has won in 2012, showing a major shift in the vote bank of this largest single block of voters in Goa. Of the 40 MLAs, 26 are Hindus and 14 are Catholics (nominally 'Christian', but comfortable offering prayers and/or coconut in a temple or a chaddar in a mosque, and the second of the Ten Commandment be damned). There is one more than the 13 Catholics in the 11th Assembly. The four Saraswats are divided 1 in the BJP (Prabhu Parrikar), 1 Congress (Kamat), 1 Independent-South (Sardessai) and 1 Independent-North (Khaunte/Counto). Other than the 4 Saraswat Brahmins (Bamonn), the rest are Bhandari, Maratha, Brahman (Bhott), ST (Gawddi, Kunbi, Velip) or SC (Reserved Constituency only). Among the 26 Hindus there are 10 OBC (including 7 Bhandari), 6 Maratha, 2 Brahman, 3 ST, 1 SC and 4 Saraswats. The BJP-MGP-supported Independents combine has 26 MLAs. with 3 from MGP and 2 Independents committed before the elections. The GVP has given unconditional support, swelling the Treasury side to 28 MLAs, if accepted. The BJP has 21 MLAs and their break up is as under: Saraswat 1 (Manohar Parrikar) Bhandari 7 (Dayanand Mandrekar, Dilip Parulekar, Kiran Kandolkar,Vishnu Wagh, Mahadev Naik, Milind Naik and Subash Naik), Other OBC 3, Maratha 3 (Laxmikant Parsdekar, Dr. Promod Sawant and Subhash Phaldesai), SC 1 (Rajendra Arlekar), ST 2 (Ramesh Tawadkar, Ganesh Gaonkar) and 6 Catholics The 2 independents supported by BJP are both Catholics. The 2 GVP MLAs who have extended post-poll support to BJP are also Catholics. ENDS [Based on a report in Goa Doot, 8 March, 2012, page 3 top.] --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Protect Goa's natural beauty Support Goa's first Tiger Reserve Sign the petition at: http://www.goanet.org/petition/petition.php ---------------------------------------------------------------------------