Goa Assembly Elections 2022| Why is Congress dragging its feet on choosing a CM face?

Congress is caught in a Catch-22 situation, in choosing its CM candidate for the Goa Assembly Elections 2022. (Representational image; Credit: Reuters)

Once bitten twice shy.  So near yet so far.  Caught between cliches, the Congress in Goa is fighting scared of naming its chief ministerial candidate on the eve of the February 14 elections.

"There is a trust deficit.  People who are getting elected are then defecting," Goa Congress Desk Incharge Dinesh Gundu Rao said in a local television interview hee.

Congress, which ruled Goa for almost 25 of the last 42 years, has been literally decimated by defections after the BJP stayed in power continuously since 2012.  More so, after the last elections in 2017.

But the party is hoping to ride an anti-incumbency BJP wave to come to power.  This, despite there now being a rather fractured Opposition for small but colourful Goa's 40-seat assembly.

In 2017, the Congress won 17 seats against the BJP's 13, but the latter snatched power nonetheless. While most in the media and in public discourse that followed blamed the Congress for its "delays" in deciding it leadership and other issues, the BJP had the upperhand being in power at New Delhi.  Traditionally, the party ruling the Centre has vitally shaped the politics of Goa in a big way.

Now, it's a Catch-22 situation.

If the Congress declares one or the other as its chief ministerial candidate, it could trigger off infighting.  If no name is announced, it could lead to uncertainity or jostling at a critical juncture.

"In Congress, there's no need to declare a CM face.  Everyone knows who will be the CM if the Congress comes to power.  There's no issue within the Congress as to who will be the CM.  It's not an issue for us," Goa Congress Desk Incharge Dinesh Gundu Rao aid here in a television interview on Prudent, a local channel.

This was interpreted as a hint that ex-CM Digambar Kamat (a former BJP MLA first elected in 1994, and who lead a stable but contentious Congress government from 2007-12) would be the CM.  But some of this could also be interpreted as lobbying by those who want such a result.  The Congress prefers to keep it vague.

Congress claim that the many of its leaders who had quit the party in the last five years was a kind of "clean up job" of the party itself.  But the pressures are obviously there.

Goa's politics has long been a complex web of pulls from local interest groups, lobbies, religious and caste networks, and business interests.  Parties hoping to fare well would not like to antagonise any power-brokers, understandably.

Read also: Ten fights to follow in Goa

New faces

With its loss of many prominent leadership -- thanks to the BJP working overtime to play up on dissidence and lure over the ambitious -- the Congress has been forced to take on many new faces.  Whether this would help is a question that will be sealed in  ballot between Valentine's Day (the February 14 polls) and counting, which will happen almost a month later on March 10.

Eighty percent of their candidates are now "young people", the Congress says.  "We have a few seniors, not too many." But the recent defections and entries into the party, by some heavyweights such as the controversial Michael Lobo, could also have its own ramifications, if and when Congress gets close to the possibilities of power.

Congress and its ally Goa Forward (a BJP ally in the past tenure in a Goa which has once again seen a resurgence of defections) have pledged to decide on its leader within "minutes".  But some of their leaders are not without huge egos and ambitions, and the other main contender for power, the BJP, has always shown its eagerness to encourage Congress dissidence to come to, and stay, in power.

Who moved?

Some of the former Congress leaders have since left the party.  Congress' Rane, Goa's five-decade long legislator, stepped aside to let his son and daughter contest their family political fiefdom of Sattari, both ironically on BJP tickets.

Luizinho Faleiro, a long-time Sonia confidante and ex-CM, dramatically shfited over to the Trinamool Congress, though facing choppy waters there.  Ex-CM Ravi Naik, whose tenure as a Congress chief minister was marked by controversy and corruption, gained  BJP ticket to upset the latter's local leaders in the area.

Three factors would determine who reaches Cabo Raj Bhavan, the Governor's residence set on a slender cap jutting into a scenic spot outside Goa.  Firstly, the outcome in terms of the number of seats.  Then, how many punches the BJP New Delhi leadership decides not to pull, and also local pulls and pushes of interest groups here and outside.

The BJP is also struggling, post-Parrikar, to continue the strategies its former strongman had implemented here. One has been in managing an edgy alliance across often squabbling caste groups.  The other is how far its willing to let realpolitik surface n its uneasy alliance with minority groups (both Catholics and Muslims) in its quest for power.

Floating rivals

Some theories are also being floated of the BJP attempting to cut Congress' chances by floating 'alternatives', including parties and candidates that promise "to defeat the BJP". This can serve to fragment the anti-BJP vote.

Together with the Congress-Goa Forward, the others crowding the anti-BJP space in Goa are the AAP, the Trinamool Congress-Maharashtrawadi Gomantak alliance, and the Revolutionary Goans.  The RG is a nativist party playing on local Goans' feeling of being sidelined in their just 1.7 million strong state.

All three of the minor players don't seem to face a shortage of funding, and in some constitutencies seem to run more visible campaigns that the Congress'. The BJP's campaign appears to be a mix of quiet house-visits and high-profile meetings addressed by the prime and home ministers.

In a state where a constituency has about 20,000 voters on average, even a couple of thousand could change the fate of the EVMs.