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Planning to get married in Goa? www.weddingsetcgoa.com Making your 'dream wedding' possible ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ANALYSIS | Goa: Return of the North-South Divide Maria do Ceu Rodrigues An apparent lack of enthusiasm for either of the two main political parties in Goa was evident in the Lok Sabha elections. This negative opinion of the nature of governance in the state, combined with the lack of a clear-cut differentiation between the parties on issues that dominated in the run-up to the elections ensured that the traditional north-south divide determined the outcome in the two parliamentary constituencies in Goa. The 2009 Lok Sabha poll saw the two major players in the Goan politics, sharing the spoils of victory evenly. While the North Goa seat was bagged by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Congress candidate emerged victorious in the South Goa seat.1 This election once again restored the traditional voting pattern that has been seen in Goa. The political/ideological divide in the state, shaped by its colonial past, runs also on geographical lines -- north and south Goa. The two geographical regions have their distinct voting patterns. The majority community dominates the north, while the minority has a significant presence in the south. Over the years in Goa, as the regional parties got replaced by national parties, the vote banks also shifted in the north from the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) to the BJP and in the south from United Goans Party (UGP) to the Congress. In 2004, the Congress failed to win back its bastion in South Goa as the seat fell to the Congress rebel candidate Churchill Alemao. In the by-election that followed though in South Goa, Francisco Sardinha, the present South Goa member of Parliament, won back the citadel for his party. The contest in both the seats was a straight fight between the BJP and the Congress-Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) combine. While the BJP put up a candidate in both the seats, the Congress left the North Goa seat to the NCP and fielded a candidate only in South Goa. While there were other parties in the fray too, the principal contest was between the BJP and the Congress-NCP alliance (Table 1). It needs to be stressed that the margin of victories of the winning candidates in both constituencies was very modest. This indicates that both seats were keenly contested. Through the Political Prism The 2009 Lok Sabha results in Goa reinforces certain established trends in the state and points to certain new directions. While it reasserts the north/south divide, other important differences can also be discerned. Though voting appeared to be on conventional lines the reduced margin of victories point to the attempts of both parties/alliances at having made every effort to woo the voters. Shripad Naik of the BJP, who retained the North Goa seat, projected himself as the son of the soil and skilfully employed the insider-outside factor to his advantage. He promised to work towards giving Goa a special status in order to attract investment for setting up industries in the state. His rival Jitendra Deshprabu, a senior Congressman switched sides on the eve of the elections to contest on the NCP ticket. He was able to give a tough fight to the BJP candidate. The situation in the south was very different. Francisco Sardinha, the Congress candidate, had to fight against all kinds of odds -- sabotages, challenges and rivalries within his party and its ally the NCP. In critical assembly segments within this South Goa Lok Sabha constituency, which were considered as bastions of important Congress-NCP alliance leaders, the party candidate did not do very well.2 The politics of internal rivalry was an offshoot of the struggle between the Congress strongman of the south -- Churchill Alemao and the Congress candidate Fransisco Sardinha. Churchill Alemao felt that the high command had let him down by denying the South Goa ticket to his daughter and giving it to his rival. This triggered off a spate of infighting in the party with charges and counter charges being levelled. It was the intervention of the Congress state general secretary Hariprasad that brought a public truce between the warring factions. Observers of the election campaign in South Goa noticed that Churchill Alemao was not very active in the party campaign. This explains the reduced margin of victory for the Congress candidate in this seat. Table 1: Lok Sabha Elections in Goa 2009 Sl No | Party | Seats Contested | Seats Won | % of Votes Polled 1 BJP 2 1 44.78 2 CPI 2 - 2.34 3 Cong 1 1 22.60 4 NCP 1 - 23.28 5 MGP 1 - 1.18 6 SHS 1 - 0.56 7 SGF 1 - 0.20 8 IND 5 - 5.06 CPI - Communist Party of India, SHS - Shiv Sena, SGF - Save Goa Front, IND - Independent. Source: Election Commission of India. Governance and Performance The disenchantment of the people with political developments in the state over the last two decades when the state has 15 governments was clearly evident. In National Election Survey (NES 2009), more than two-thirds of the respondents who took a stand on the frequent change of state government said that this development had disturbed the governance in the sate.3 Table 2: Response to Important Controversies Affecting the State Only Goans Should Be Allowed to Buy Land in Goa Strongly agree 36 Somewhat agree 32 Somewhat disagree 16 Strongly disagree 8 No opinion 8 Casinos May Boost Tourism but They Will Ruin the Youth in the State Strongly agree 32 Somewhat agree 26 Somewhat disagree 14 Strongly disagree 13 No opinion 15 Two or Three SEZs Should be Allowed in Goa Strongly agree 9 Somewhat agree 21 Somewhat disagree 17 Strongly disagree 20 No opinion Building the Mopa Airport Will be Good for Goa Strongly agree 23 Somewhat agree 20 Somewhat disagree 22 Strongly disagree 19 No opinion 16 Mining Has Benefited the People of Goa Strongly agree 39 Somewhat agree 33 Somewhat disagree 11 Strongly disagree 4 No opinion 13 Q: Now I will read out few statements. Please tell me whether you agree or disagree with each one of them? (Probe further whether 'fully' or 'somewhat' agrees or disagrees). There were a wide range of issues that were debated in Goa in the months preceding the elections (Table 2). Several movements and agitations were witnessed in the state linked to these movements. These include the regional plan 2021, mining issue, mega land projects, special economic zone (SEZ) controversies, Mope airport, Casino r elated tourism, outsiderinsider sentiments and the migrant issue. The mega land projects in the state have been at the centre of many a controversy. Many felt that their ancestral lands were being sold to outsiders by the insensitive politicians who appeared to be hand in glove with land developers and builders. Goa has witnessed several protests over land sales and many projects have had to be put on hold in view of these protests. NES 2009 found that most Goans did not appear to favour the sale of land to those from outside the state. Two-thirds of the respondents felt that land should not be sold to those who did not hail from Goa. Only two of every 10 respondents saw nothing wrong in the land sale to nonGoans. Casino-related tourism has been another issue of great concern to Goans. Several protests were held across Goa protesting demanding the closure of casinos as they were ruining youth in the state. Bowing to public sentiment the Congress government ordered all the six offshore casinos to move away from city limits. Several political leaders raised this issue in their election campaigns. NES 2009 found that a majority of the respondents felt that though casinos may help boost tourism they would adversely impact the youth in the state. It must also be recorded that one-fourth of the respondents were not in agreement with this view. A major debate in Goa was also linked to the concessions being accorded to select business houses. The ordinance promulgated by the Goa government in March 2009, amending the Land Acquisition Act was viewed by many as being unjustified and brought into effect to protect a particular hotel from being demolished because of a Supreme Court judgment. When people were asked whether they felt that the ordinance was justified, it is important to record that nearly half the people had not heard of it. Of those who knew of the ordinance, a very small percentage approved of the same. The creation of SEZs was also an important bone of political contention in the state. It was opposed on a variety of grounds -- environmental hazards and misuse of scarce resources being the main objections. The protest against the government's decision to create 16 SEZs was so intense the government offered to scale them down to just three. The protests continued demanding a total scrapping of the SEZs to which the government finally relented. NES 2009 asked respondents whether they felt that at least a few SEZs should have been created. While there was some support for the creation of the SEZs the opposition to them was more intense. The building of the new Mopa airport was also in the news in Goa for some time. It also figured in the election manifestos of the political parties. The NCP-Congress combine promised to build a new airport at Mopa in the north without closing the existing airport at Dabolim in the south. The people in the south have vehemently opposed any move to close the Dabolim airport -- the lifeline of tourism in South Goa. Opinion seem to be equally divided in the state along regional lines with the people in the south opposing the building of the new airport. Mining has also been a major issue driving controversies in the state. A number of movements have focused on the environmental hazards caused by mining. Politicians have been accused of siding with powerful mining lobbies. This was evident in the fact that no major political party included mining in its manifesto. NES 2009 data shows more than seven of every 10 Goans agreed with the view that mining has benefited the state. Despite the fears raised by environmentalists, the people of the state appear to have no objections to this industry. An analysis of the responses of the people in Goa to important questions demonstrates the fact that there are serious divisions amongst them on most of these issues. The general disenchantment with parties resulted in no party being able to make any issue central to the election campaign. This invariably resulted in the traditional division that has manifested itself in Goa politics between the north and south once again asserting itself. Data from NES 2009 reveals that the minorities have largely voted for the Congress-NCP alliance while the upper caste and Other Backward Class vote has tilted in favour of the BJP. The election did see an erosion in the support base of the BJP, which is evidenced from the small margin of victory in the seat it retained and its inability to wrest the other seat from the Congress. A divided Congress was unable to challenge the BJP in the north and barely managed to retain its seat in the south. A lacklustre campaign resulted in the reassertion of a status quo in the politics of the state. Notes 1 After the delimitation of constituencies the two Lok Sabha seats of Goa have been called North Goa and South Goa. Earlier the North Goa seat was called Panaji and the South Goa seat - Mormugao. 2 In the Navelim constituency -- a segment of the South Goa Lok Sabha constituency represented by the public works department minister Churchill Alemao -- the Congress candidate could manage a lead of merely 93 votes. In Vasco-da-Gama assembly constituency, another segment of the South Goa seat represented by revenue minister Jose Philip (NCP), the BJP candidate secured a lead of 20 votes. 3 The Survey was conducted as part of the UGC Project, "General Elections 2009: A Behavioural Study of Political Attitudes and Opinions in Goa". The survey was conducted amongst 585 people in the state of Goa. We are grateful to the students of MES college, Law college and the Pillar college for their fieldwork and Hazel-Anne Rodrigues who worked as the state supervisor. * * * Economic & Political Weekly EPW September 26, 2009 Vol xliv no 39 131 Maria do Ceu Rodrigues (mariadoceurodrig...@yahoo.co.in) is with the Department of Political Science, MES College of Arts & Commerce, Goa.
