http://www.oheraldo.in/newscategory/Opinions/14 --- Bargaining chips only
EUGENE CORREIA After taking a few years to come to terms with their new found political reality in post-Liberated Goa, Goans began to show their political proclivities in immeasurable terms. In this fresh political soil there grew two political parties, the Maharashtra Gomantak Party (MGP) and the United Goans Party (UGP), both contesting in Goa's first experiment with the free, democratic, adult franchise process in 1963. In subsequent elections, Goans began showing their political proclivities and allegiances to political parties in greater number and with great vibrancy and strong resourcefulness. The Goan political mind that began to be tempered with the fires of the first election has today attained a degree of self-assurance and maturity. The mind that was swayed by regional and communal affinities in the first three elections, putting the MGP into power, has now turned its focus on national parties. Goans have begun showing a disinclination for Goa-centric parties. As before, in the last elections a new outfit like the Goa Vikas Party (GVP) saw only limited success in South Goa. While the UGP is long gone, the MGP continues to plough a lonely furrow in North Goa with some success. It's hard to be judgemental on whether the voters have rightly or wrongly not put their total faith in Goa-centric parties. The MGP has lost much of its steam, and the United Goans Democratic Party (UDGP), which filled in the vacant space left by the United Goans Party (UGP), has been reduced to an also ran. The UGP rotates on the axis of brothers-in-law Radharao Gracias and Anacleto Viegas and this sort of family raj hasn't helped the party's image nor given it satisfactory electoral gain. The party tried to persuade Churchill Alemao to re-initiate his own pro-Dabolim movement but Churchill, as of now, is dithering on the ground that if he does so he may end up looking like an adventurist trying to snatch the limelight from Maka Naka Dabolim, which is already firmly established in the minds and hearts of Xasttikars. A wavering Churchill - from Dabolim to Mopa and back to Dabolim-isn't a creditable prop for the pro-Dabolim movement. Churchill's penchant for dancing inside and around political fires, regularly burning his fingers, made him the foremost among those who launched the UDGP. Unable to plant himself in the party, he branched off with another fig leaf, the Save Goa Front (SGF), born out of the Save Goa Movement launched to give Konkani its rightful status as official language. The net result of the SGF was a win for Churchill in Navelim and for Aleixo Reginaldo Lourenco in Curtorim, both against heavyweights Luizinho Faleiro and Francisco Sardinha, respectively. Churchill's singing the pro-Dabolim tune has selfish political overtones as he’s jockeying for the South Goa ticket for the 2014 general elections. As the situation stands, Alemao may once again act like a bull in a china shop in the scuffle for the forthcoming Lok Sabha election ticket from South Goa and create a ruckus in the Congress. His stunning victory against the sitting MP Eduardo Faleiro in 1996 is one for the record books. Quitting his parliamentary seat and then regaining his Assembly seat and re-occupying a minister's chair only to be laid by the wayside in the last elections is reflective of a seesaw political journey. Another interlude in Churchill’s dramatic political career was his occupying the CM’s chair, however briefly. Other parties came up like offshoots only to wither away in quick time. The Gomant Lok Pokx (Goan People's Party), a brainchild of the late Matanhy Saldanha, was billed as a party fighting for the common man. It carried Matanhy's stamp as a relentless social activist. The party had no takers and died of suffocation. Matanhy's brief dalliance with the UDGP earned him an electoral breakthrough but then other political forces conspired to take him into the BJP's embrace and, in the process, earned him the UDGP's wrath. The Goa Vikas Party (GVP), under the flamboyant, controversial and unpredictable Francisco Xavier (Mickky) Pacheco, has created low-intensity waves in South Goa politics. More bombast than substance, the party is riding on Pacheco's rollercoaster. With Pacheco constantly in the headlines for all the wrong reasons, and with Caetano (Caitu) D'Silva getting negative attention, the party is becoming infectiously laughable. In existence for 13 years, the Goa Su-Raaj Party (GSRP), which means Good Governance Party, seems like a stalled vehicle on a roadmap. The views of its founder-president and current general-secretary, Floriano Lobo and the outbursts on its website and in Internet forums on Goa's Liberation and other flimsy issues can be best described as shooting the wind. Lobo's view that "Goans are not Indians, and never will be, until the UN-mandated plebiscite is conducted to decide what Goans want" is anachronistic. The party is closely aligned with the Movement for Special Status for Goa (MSSG), one of the two focus groups. In the topsyturvy world of Goan politics, the voters are left bemused - and wary - of the political class. No political party has earned the full admiration of the voting class. In the early years, it was MGP's sway over the electorate, helped by Bhausaheb Bandodkar's largesse. In the present scenario, the prospect of Goa-centric parties coming ---- Eugene