Goa Forward Party (GFP) chief Vijai Sardesai on Tuesday renewed his pitch for a broader opposition front to take on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in next year’s state elections, a sign that the newly minted “Goa First” alliance with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) may be on the verge of a collapse over disagreements on including the Congress in the coalition.
Sardesai invoked a local mango metaphor to underline his assessment that Goans wanted a broader opposition front rather than just AAP, which was seen to be Delhi-centric.
“No Goan will choose a Dasheri (a variety popular in North India) when the (locally popular) Mancurad is available,” Sardesai said in a video statement on Tuesday.
“In politics, the voter is king. From Goan voters, I hear only one call: a grand alliance is necessary. They want an alliance, but they want a grand alliance of all parties coming together to defeat the BJP,” he said.
On September 13, the GFP and AAP announced that the two parties would contest next year’s Goa assembly election in an alliance. At the time, Sardesai described Goa First as an alliance of like-minded parties that wanted to defeat the BJP and had no faith that Congress MLAs wouldn’t switch over to the BJP, as they did in the past. Sardesai was referring to Congress MLAs ‘defecting’ to the BJP en masse in 2019 as well as in 2022, the second time despite taking an ‘oath’ not to do so, via signed affidavits as well as at a temple, church and a mosque.
But GFP leaders started dropping hints within days of the September 13 announcement that the party wanted to bring the Congress on board, leading to tension with the AAP.
Sardesai’s statement on Tuesday was part of the continuing back-and-forth between the two parties on the issue. On Monday, the Goa AAP issued a statement asking Sardesai to take a stand. “We stand with the people of Goa and not with the BJP-Congress Joint Venture,” the AAP said in a statement.
As Sardesai came out with his response, joint AAP-GFP billboards that attacked the BJP and the Congress for cheating Goans were pulled down.
In his video message, Sardesai reasoned that the BJP could not be defeated by “targeting the principal opposition party” and underlined the need for “greater unity” among everyone genuinely opposed to the BJP.
“So if this alliance is to be brought together, it cannot be through targeting the principal opposition party. This is what the people feel. And we have to do what the people feel. And in politics, if we do not do what the people want, the people will teach you,” Sardesai added.
In the 2022 elections, when the BJP came to power, winning 20 of the state’s 40 seats with a 33% vote share, the Congress was the runner-up with 11 legislators and 23% of the vote. Eight of the 11 MLAs later switched over to the BJP.
The AAP, on the other hand, won two seats and nearly 7% of the vote, while the GFP received 1.78% of the vote. Vijai Sardesai was the party’s lone MLA.
