Despite Modi wave, BJP loses Manohar Parrikar’s Panaji assembly seat

BJP accepts 'some discontent among people' regarding its candidate, but is safely placed in the Goa assembly after the bypolls to 4 seats.

Congress' Atanasio Monserrate | ANI Photo

Mumbai: At a time when the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is dominating the national landscape, the party has lost one of its most prestigious seats after 25 years — the assembly constituency of Panaji that was held by former Goa chief minister Manohar Parrikar.

Congress’ Atanasio Monserrate, popularly known as Babush, has won Parrikar’s erstwhile seat by 1,758 votes.

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Monseratte quit the Goa Forward Party (GFP) and joined the Congress just before the bypoll as his former political outfit, a BJP ally, decided to not field candidates against the ruling party.

‘Candidate compared to Parrikar’s stature’

“There was some discontent among the people regarding the candidate that we fielded. We could not contain that discontent at the eleventh hour. Also, this was our beloved leader Manohar Parrikar’s constituency and no candidate was strong enough to fill his shoes,” BJP Goa president Vinay Tendulkar told ThePrint.

“People compared our candidate to Parrikar’s stature.”

Tendulkar added that this is not the Congress’ victory, but the individual victory of the party’s candidate, Monserrate.

The Panaji bypoll was necessitated after Parrikar’s death on 17 March. While there were talks of the BJP fielding Parrikar’s son, Utpal, the party fielded Parrikar’s former aide Siddharth Kuncalienkar.

The contest was further heated with the candidature of Subhash Velingar, who was ousted as the head of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s Goa unit after differences with the BJP-led state government. Velingkar contested from his own political outfit, Goa Suraksha Manch.

BJP wins other bypolls, strengthens government

The other three constituencies that went to bypolls — Mandrem, Shiroda and Mapusa — have been won by the BJP. These bypolls were necessitated due to the death of a BJP legislator and defections of two Congress MLAs to the BJP.

The bypolls were significant as any major shift could have drastically altered political equations in the state where a shaky numbers game has just about kept the BJP in power.

Before the bypolls, the 40-member assembly had 36 MLAs — 14 each of the BJP and the Congress. The Congress had the support of one Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) legislator.

The BJP had held power in the state with the support of three from the GFP, three Independents, and one disgruntled legislator, Sudin Dhavalikar, from the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party, whom the BJP-led government overnight ousted as deputy CM in March, to reach the 21 mark.

However, since then, Dhavalikar has been tentative about his support to the coalition government.

Now after the bypolls, BJP has improved its own tally in the 40-member house to 17 and the coalition tally to 23, past the halfway mark of 20, even without Dhavalikar’s support. The Congress has 15 seats.