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How Different Are Goa's Politics? Arthur G. Rubinoff Arthur G. Rubinoff is Professor Emeritus of Political Science, The University of Toronto, Canada. E-mail: [email protected] Published by: http://www.sagepublications.com On behalf of: LOKNITI, Centre For The Study Of Developing Societies (CSDS) can be found at: Studies in Indian Politics Abstract This article explores how Goa's politics have evolved in conjunction with national politics. It finds that there has been an evolution from communal regional party government dominated by the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) to the supremacy of two national parties -- the Indian National Congress (INC) and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) -- that now dominate the politics of the state, while the situation in New Delhi has moved from national party supremacy to the rise of regional parties at the expense of national institutions. In that sense Goa's politics continue to be at variance from the national pattern. However, its pattern of unstable coalitions and pervasive defections resembles the national pattern. Keywords: Party system, Goa, regional parties, coalition, defections India's First Party System -------------------------- For its first 30 years India had what Rajni Kothari (1964) labelled a one-party-dominant system. The Indian National Congress (INC) was the only party organized in every state. Founded in 1885, it is one of the oldest political movements in the world (Kochanek, 1968). As the successor to the nationalist movement, the INC was not an orthodox political party in the European sense depicted by Robert Michels or Maurice Duverger (Sartori, 1976). As Myron Weiner (1957) described it, the Congress was an umbrella organization that was a generous shelter. It had a mixed social base and very broad goals. All the country's interests were originally represented in the party. Under the leadership of Jawaharlal Nehru, the organization had a system of consociational politics that involved political accommodation by regional and interest group elites (Lijphardt, 1996). There was no alternative to or replacement of the Congress. As William Riker (1962) demonstrated, the most effective opposition consisted of factions inside the party. The function of opposition parties was to influence the direction of specific polities -- not to form the government (Morris-Jones, 1966). If necessary, the Congress co-opted the opposition leaders. A first-past-the-post electoral system without proportional representation and a fragmented opposition prolonged Congress dominance (Rubinoff, 1990). It was able to produce majority governments with a plurality of the vote (Rubinoff, 1998b). Goa belatedly entered this political system on 19 December 1961. The Binary Pattern of Goa's First Party System ---------------------------------------------- Goa is located on the western coast of India, 250 miles south-southeast of Mumbai. Portugal originally conquered Goa from the Bijapur sultanate in 1510. New territories were added in 1782-1791 (known as 'New Conquest' areas). By 1954 about 1,500 square miles of India with a population of 638,000 remained under Portuguese control. According to the Government of India, 388,488 or 60.9 per cent of its people were Hindus; 234,292 or 36.8 per cent were Christians, nearly all of those residing in the originally conquered territories; 14,162 or 2.2 per cent of the populace were Muslims (Nehru, 1956, p. 29). Racially nearly all were of Indian stock. According to Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, 95.8 per cent of the people declared Konkani to be their native language.2 Despite the fact that only 3 per cent of the people spoke or understood Portuguese, it was the official language of the colonies. When Goa was territorially integrated into the Indian Union on 19 December 1961 (Rubinoff, 1971), it was completely without politics. In the colonial era democratic electoral politics were suppressed and governance was hierarchical, with the Portuguese Governor-General, who headed the civil and military administration, appointed by the fascist dictatorship in Lisbon. Goa evolved along similar lines as the mother country (Portugal Overseas and the Question of Goa, Statements and Testimonies, n.d., p. 84). The Council of Ministers was appointed by the colonial administration. Even after the 'reforms' of 1955 established a new council of 22 members, half were still appointed and only 20,000 people out of the 638,000 residents of the colony elected the remaining representatives. The Overseas Minister in Lisbon could override any decisions that were in conflict with the will of the local inhabitants. As is well documented, the dictatorship maintained its rule with a rigid system of censorship and police activity. Illegal activity was punished with imprisonment and/or exile (Gaitonde and Mani, 1956, pp. 23-24). Although Goans who were active in the liberation movement had ties with the INC and Socialist parties, politics in the Union Territory essentially started with a blank slate. Not surprisingly they began with a binary pattern that gravitated along communal lines (Das Gupta, 1970), with Christians gravitating to the United Goans Party that advocated statehood and the majority non-Brahman Hindus supporting the Mahaharashtrawadi Gomantak Party, which promised union with Maharashtra. The dominant party in the Indian Union, the INC, which was run hierarchically by the Nehru family, had neither a local organization nor grassroots support except among Hindu Brahmans (Joshi, 1964). The 1963 Elections ------------------ Just as the INC considered anti-colonial activity to be a requisite for securing a ticket, so too did the Congress party in Goa feel compelled to select freedom fighters as candidates for the 1963 elections. As a consequence, its list was predominately Hindu Brahman. As that community constituted only 10 per cent of the non-Christian population, the Congress's criteria for the selection of candidates were a disaster. It failed to win any parliamentary constituency in the first territorial elections in 1963. The only assembly seat it captured was in Daman. As a non-Brahman, Hindu-oriented party that advocated merger with Maharashtra, the MGP was able to mobilize anti-Catholic and anti-Brahman sentiments in the predominately Hindu New Conquest areas that had become Portuguese in the eighteenth century and won a majority by capturing 16 assembly seats and both parliamentary constituencies. In reaction to what they regarded as a threat to the region's separate identity, the Christian community coalesced around the United Goans (UG) that promised statehood. The UG, whose support was concentrated in the Old Conquest coastal talukas, secured just under 30 per cent of the popular vote and picked up 12 assembly seats. An independent was returned from Diu, while the only Congressman who secured election came from Daman. Although it fielded 29 candidates, the Congress party received less than 17 per cent of the popular vote. The results of the 1963 Goa elections were described 'as the most serious electoral debacle' the Congress party had suffered up to that point (Times of India, 13 December 1963). Its ideology of secularism had clashed with existing primordial loyalties that were exacerbated by the impact of democratic politics in a post-colonial setting. The communal nature of the results 'pained' Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru (Hindustan Times, 14 December 1963). The Opinion Poll ---------------- Since it regarded its victory as an endorsement of merger with Maharashtra, the MGP under the leadership of Chief Minister Dayand Bandodkar carried out a series of measures designed to promote that objective. The Bandodkar administration promoted Marathi as the language of government and education, while denigrating Konkani. It passed a resolution in the Goa assembly demanding the merger of Goa with Maharashtra and Daman and Diu with Gujarat,3 and enacted tenancy legislation which gave property to those who worked the land at the expense of those Goans -- mainly Christians -- who lived abroad or worked in places like Bombay but maintained land in the territory (Cotta, 1966, p. 6). The government inundated the bureaucracy with 1,100 deputized civil servants at a time when qualified Goans were available to fill the positions. As a majority of the deputationists were from Maharashtra, it was believed that their primary function was to promote merger, not administer the territory. The communalist tactics of Bandodkar, who claimed he was in favour of a Hindu -- not a secular -- state (Navhind Times, 7 June 1970) provoked an intense backlash and succeeded in uniting the Catholic and Brahman communities that were opposed to merger. The reaction to these measures was twofold: the UG staged walkouts from the assembly, and a nonparty Council of Direct Action staged extra-parliamentary satyagrahas, hartals, marches and other agitations that by August 1966 were seriously disrupting the territory's economy. With Congress-dominated legislatures in Maharashtra unanimously endorsing merger and Mysore supporting the status quo, the party was in a dilemma. As a way out of this predicament, the Congress parliamentary board on 3 September 1966 recommended that the Government of India conduct an opinion poll -- the only plebiscite in the country's history -- to decide if the people of the former Portuguese territories wanted to retain Union Territory status or be merged with a neighbouring state. The electorate of Goa would decide if it desired to be merged with Maharashtra and the voters in Daman and Diu would indicate if they wanted a merger with Gujarat. The contest that transpired during the one month interval between the imposition of central adminis-tration and the 17 January 1967 Opinion Poll engendered the most intense political activity in Goa's history (see Esteves, 1966). The activity elicited a turnout of nearly 82 per cent of the voters. Significantly, the turnout was 87.43 per cent in the Old Conquests and 82.93 per cent in the New Conquests. With their identity at stake, the Goans rejected merger by a vote of 172,191 to 138,170, a majority of 34,021 out of 317,633 votes cast. In rejecting merger Hindu Brahmans who normally voted for the INC formed an alliance with virtually the entire Catholic community that normally supported the UG (Amonkar et al., n.d.). However, speculation that Goa had entered the mainstream of Indian politics (Saksena, 1974) was premature. Although the alliance between Christians and Hindu Brahmans succeeded in preventing the attempted merger with Maharashtra in January 1967, it was unable to form a coalition that could gain control of the territory's political apparatus in the ensuing March 1967 assembly elections. Voters returned to their communal pattern of voting and the INC did not contest the campaign. Once again the MGP returned to office, as it captured 16 seats and 40.37 per cent of the vote. The UG fell to 12 seats and 37.98 per cent of the vote. Bandodkar, who was kept in office by engendering clever defections, scored his biggest victory, winning 18 seats in 1972. Bandodkar was aided by splinter parties that fragmented the anti-MGP vote, as well as the fact that the Congress once again fielded a full slate of candidates but won only Daman. The Congress debacle in Goa occurred at a time when Mrs Gandhi's supporters were sweeping the rest of the country. As Aureliano Fernandes (1997, p. 14) suggests, Bandodkar, who converted both the Government of Goa and the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party into his personal fiefdoms, is the only Goan politician to have a mass base. All other Chief Ministers have been merely leaders of their legislative parties. The Emergence of National Politics ---------------------------------- The binary pattern of Goan politics lasted until Mrs Indira Gandhi's State of Emergency when national parties essentially absorbed most elements of their regional antecedents (Rubinoff, 1998a, Chapter 4). Before the Congress could play an effective role in the region, the communal pattern of politics had to be broken and the local party unit had to be legitimated by local talent. This occurred during the period of Mrs Gandhi's imposition of Emergency in the mid-1970s when the bulk of the mainly Catholic UG joined non-Brahman Hindu defectors from the MGP in the Congress. Even though the Sequeira family, which founded the UG, eventually migrated to the Janata Party, that organization had a transitory existence in Goa. However, its presence on the ballot split the anti-MGP vote and enabled Bandodkar's daughter Shashikala Kakodkar to barely eke out a narrow victory in the 1977 elections. Her hold on the party's members was not secure, and the MGP government collapsed in 1979. The defeat of the MGP marked the emergence of non-communal issue-oriented politics, as for the first time voters exercised their franchise on the basis of governmental performance. The Congress-U, affiliated with neighbouring Karnataka Chief Minister Devaraj Urs, that emerged triumphant in the 1980 elections may be seen more as a holding company of the opposition in Goa than as an extension of a national organization. The results, as The Times of India (10 January 1980, p. 6) pointed out, marked the initial time that Goa had voted for a national party -- but in supporting the Congress-U, which did poorly everywhere else, the Union Territory had reasserted its insularity. No Congress-I candidate was successful in Goa, despite the national trend. Shortly after the election, local units of the two Congress parties were amalgamated under Mrs Gandhi's banner. Despite its overwhelming 23-seat victory, the Congress began to fragment by 1984. However, because of that fragmentation in the election of that year, the INC won 18 seats with just under 40 per cent of the vote. The MGP had ceased to be a force in Goan politics. It was now a rump party. Its Marathi-speaking base was dying out. By the end of the decade it would be displaced by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) as the choice of Hindu voters whose ranks were reinforced by migrants from other parts of India. This transition would not be smooth, as the BJP did not incorporate elements of the local Hindu-oriented MGP. Instead, the BJP staffed its political organization from the ranks of its affiliated cadres such as the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). Goa's Second Party System: Instability as the BJP Displaces the MGP ------------------------------------------------------------------- As is the case elsewhere in India, it is becoming virtually impossible to form a government in Goa, let alone govern. Since the attainment of statehood in 1987, politics in Goa have come to replicate the all-India pattern of defections and unstable governments. The instability of Goan politics dates back to 1990. At that time --when Congress was out of power in Delhi -- the 10-year government of Pratapsingh Rane was overthrown and Goan politics plunged into a state of chaos. Whereas between 1963 and 1989 Goa had only three Chief Ministers, the following year it had four different persons occupy that office. Within a single legislative term, Goa had changed governments four times and Chief Ministers seven times (Goa Today, March 1994, p. 9). In order to form a government, any party, including the Congress, has to manufacture defections to forge an unstable coalition. These manoeuvres rewarded defectors and increased the cost of government while undermining the public's faith in the political system.4 This lack of performance has revived the prospects of regional parties, but also dramatically increased the proportion of votes secured by independent candidates. Party Fragmentation in 1994: An Unending Maze --------------------------------------------- The 1994 elections demonstrated the inability of any single party to govern Goa independently. Party vote fragmented in 1994. Even though they formed an alliance, the BJP-MGP's combined total of 32.1 per cent of the vote represented a decline of 7.6 per cent from 1989. Congress's share of the vote also dropped 3.23 per cent from its previous level to 37.5 per cent. Splinter parties like the United Goans Democratic Party (UGDP) led by Churchill Alemao and various incarnations headed by Wilfred D'Souza have eroded the Congress vote among Catholics in Salcette taluka. As is the situation nationally, the Congress party in Goa continues to fragment. Its only reliable base is Catholic voters in the outlying New Conquests, where they are a minority (de Souza, 1996a). The intervention by Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao in seat allocation caused a number of disenchanted Congress aspirants to run as independents and provoked a backlash against the high command politics of the national parties. As a result, independents polled 22.1 per cent of the vote and won three seats. These machinations enabled Pratapsingh Rane, with the support of three independents and four MGP defectors, to regain the chief ministership and once again form a Congress government. The 1998 Parliamentary Vote: A Transformational Election for the BJP -------------------------------------------------------------------- The 1998 parliamentary elections were transformational in the BJP's process of displacing the MGP as the preference of Hindu voters. While the Congress won both seats in the 1998 parliamentary elections, its performance was unimpressive. Its candidates carried only 10 assembly districts, and the party's net percentage of votes declined in the four-way contests. Although former Chief Minister Ravi Naik won the north seat, the total Congress vote declined 10 per cent, while former 14-year Cabinet Minister Francisco Sardinha increased the Congress vote by only 3 per cent in capturing the south seat. The biggest story of the 1998 election was the performance of the BJP. After never polling more than 18 per cent of the vote since it began contesting elections in 1991, the BJP came within 7,850 votes of winning the south seat in a constituency that is 40 per cent Christian. The BJP nearly doubled the number of votes it won in the north, rising from 30,022 in 1996 to 92,240. The BJP took 17 assembly districts, including the urban centres of Panaji, Bicholim, Ponda, Margao and Vasco. The BJP also did well in traditional MGP strongholds, as the former governing party carried only five assembly districts. Its elderly Marathi-speaking Hindu constituency has been displaced by younger better-educated voters, who like their counterparts elsewhere in India prefer the BJP. Because the process was not yet complete, the Congress was able to regain both parliamentary seats with a declining share of the electorate. Cognizant that its base was eroding, the party readmitted Churchill Alemao, who had undermined its southern Salcete stronghold. The BJP parlayed its gains in the 1998 parliamentary election into the 1999 assembly elections when it captured a quarter of the vote and 10 seats. It increased its share of the vote to 35.57 per cent and 17 seats in 2002 -- the first time it outpolled Congress -- before falling back to 30.32 per cent and 14 seats in 2007. However, the entry of the BJP, another national party, initially worked to the advantage of the Congress, because it fragmented the opposition vote. The rise of the BJP and the demise of the MGP enabled the Congress to increase its share of the vote and the number of seats it won in 1999. However, this fragmentation caused the Congress to lose assembly seats in 2002, even though its share of the vote held steady. Fragmentation has ensured that rump groupings headed by local factions have endured (de Souza, 1996b). Nevertheless, politics currently represents a contest between the Congress and Bharatiya Janata labels. Table 1 demonstrates that since the BJP displaced the MGP, the two national parties have consistently won about two-thirds of the vote and three-quarters of the seats. This consolidation has not brought political stability to India's smallest state. The rivalries and conflicting ambitions of politicians like Churchill Alemao, Luizinho Faleiro, Ramkant Khalap, Ravi Naik, Francisco Sardinha and Dr Wilfred de Souza led to unparalleled instability (for details, see Rubinoff, 1999). Both the government and opposition -- no matter which party was in power -- engineered defections as each jockeyed for power. As Aureliano Fernandes (2003, p. 197) notes, the Congress has been the principal beneficiary of defectors, cannibalizing the MGP and the UGDP. Even though voters punished defectors and party switchers like Alemao and Khalap, it did not stop the game of musical chairs, parliamentary coups and serial elections (see Rubinoff, 2003). This situation has been exacerbated by frequent changes in government in New Delhi, as local politicians attempt to curry favour at the centre. In one 10 year period (1990-2000) Goa had 13 Chief Ministers, including five in 17 months (Rubinoff, 2002). Table 1. Share of the Vote by the BJP and INC Party 1984 1989 1994 1999 2002 2007 2012 ------------------------------------------------------------ BJP 1.20% 0.40% 9.05% 25.15% 35.7% 30.23% 36.02% 4 seats 10seats 17seats 14seats 21 seats INC 39.40% 40.52% 37.54% 38.58% 38.42% 32.25% 29.74% 18seats 18seats 18seats 21seats 16seats 16seats 9 seats Total 40.60% 40.92% 46.59% 63.73% 74.12% 62.48% 65.76% 18seats 18seats 22seats 31seats 32seats 30seats 30seats Even though the BJP toppled the Congress in a coup engineered under its skillful leader Manohar Parrikar in October 2000 and gained power by winning the 2002 election, Pratapsingh Rane was able to engineer several defections from the BJP and regain the Chief Ministership for the Congress in 2005. One of the defectors, Digambar Kamat, became Chief Minister after the 2007 elections --the first Chief Minister to serve a full five-year term since statehood was achieved in 1987. While there was the appearance of stability on the surface -- compared to the previous 15 years -- it was deceptive, as Kamat's hold on power was tenuous. Corruption and Dynastic Politics as Issues in the 2012 Elections ---------------------------------------------------------------- The antagonisms and rivalries of the principal players on the Goan political scene were evident in the manoeuvring for the 2012 elections. There was no shortage of ambitious and opportunistic politicians who show a greater loyalty to office than party, and who have become wealthy in office (The Hindu, A House of crorepatis in Goa). This circumstance did not produce good governance, but made political corruption and dynastic politics the main issue in the 2012 election campaign (Navhind Times, 26 January 2012). Despite that reality, the BJP and the Congress each allotted tickets to nine candidates -- many of them former Cabinet Ministers -- who have pending criminal cases! (Deccan Herald, 22 February 2012). Nevertheless, as the governing party, Congress bore the wrath of voter disenchantment in the March 2012 elections. Voter discontent was evident by the size of the turnout: 82 per cent of the electorate -- up from 70.51 per cent in 2007. As is the case nationally, the Congress party in Goa has degenerated organizationally and is characterized by family rule rather than popular support. The Herald (12 December 2011) pointed out, `The Congress in Goa is nothing but a sum total of individual MLAs who run their fiefdoms in their backyard and have been wearing the Congress jersey.' Congress retains its feudal dynastic characteristics, as five political families -- the Alemaos, Madkaikars, Monserrates, Naiks and Ranes -- received over one-third of the party's tickets for the 2012 assembly elections and assured that their associates obtained most of the remaining allocations (Economic Times, 10 February 2012). That feudal decentralization would make it impossible for the party to fight a coordinated campaign. It also led disappointed office seekers to challenge Congress candidates by running as independents. In contrast, the BJP, after securing an alliance with the MGP, reached out to Catholic voters in Salcette by allocating an unprecedented six tickets to Catholic candidates and supported two independents from the Christian community. This strategy yielded huge dividends as the BJP won 21 seats outright in demolishing the INC, which was reduced to nine seats. The BJP and its allies won all but one seat in the northern taluka of Bardez and left the Congress with only 4 of 17 seats in its southern bastion of Salcette. Among the victims of the decimation were six Congress and two National Congress Party ministers, including Forest Minister Felipe Neri Rodrigues, Power Minister Aleixo Sequeria, Revenue Minister Jose Philip D'Souza and Tourism Minister Nitin Halarnkar. Other Congress notables who went down to defeat were former minister Dayanand Narvekar, Public Works Minister Churchill Alemao and his brother, Fisheries Minister Joaquim. Moreover, all of the other Alemao family members who were candidates were defeated in their respective constituencies.Although the Congress renewed its alliance with the National Congress, that party was shut out, as all seven of its candidates were defeated. While the Congress vote declined only 3 per cent, it lost vote share to numerous small parties, including the Trinamool Congress, which contested the race and split the Catholic vote. Even though the BJP attained a victory reminiscent of that won by the Congress in 1980, it faces challenges as it attempts to govern. Goa's record for instability replicates and even exceeds the all- Indian pattern, whereby, as Paul Brass (1990) has demonstrated, instability, factionalism, party switching, defections, recycling of candidates and fragmentation have characterized India's politics. Just as is the situation at the centre, Goan legislators and parties `work out short-term coalitions with temporary majorities that find election opponents transformed into partners and former allies transformed into enemies' (de Souza, 1999, p. 2436). Given the recycling of discredited politicians who are given tickets in different parties and the defections that take place after the poll, it is as though elections and their results do not matter. Cynical voters have seen this merry-go-round before and are tired of it. The Fragmentation of India's Politics ------------------------------------- Ironically, while Goan politics have moved towards a constellation of two national parties, the country's politics have been characterized by the breakdown of party cohesiveness. While there was sentiment that the system would evolve into a two-party contest between the Congress and the Janata grouping following the amalgamation of most major opposition parties after the Emergency in 1977, that sentiment was short lived following the collapse of the Janata coalition in 1979. India's political system has evolved from the days of Congress dominance (Manor, 2011). Initially the fissiparous tendencies were evident in the opposition, which fragmented into multiple communist and socialist parties. The Congress unraveled following Nehru's death in 1964 and that of his immediate successor Lal Bahadur Shastri 18 months later. The most severe rupture occurred in 1969, when Nehru's daughter and ultimate successor Indira Gandhi split from the organizational wing known as 'the syndicate' over the party's choice of candidate for president, an office that chose the Prime Minister in event of a lack of a clear majority. Her personalized style of rule ended the consociational elite style of decision-making. It also deinstitutionalized Indian politics, including the courts, and destroyed the party apparatus. Instead of allowing popular party leaders to emerge, she parachuted sycophants into the country's state governments and through the appointment of governors manipulated the fall of state governments controlled by other parties. Her activities in promoting extremist Sikhs to bring down the Akali Dal government in the Punjab ultimately led to her undoing. Her son and successor Rajiv Gandhi consciously courted Hindu nationalist votes in the election that followed his mother's assassination by Sikh bodyguards in 1984. While that strategy decimated the BJP in the short run, it also caused minorities -- once the backbone of the Congress -- to abandon the party. Moreover, the rise of the lower caste parties in north India following the release of the latent Mandal Report in 1990 deprived the Congress of support in its historic base in north India (Jaffrelot, 2007). As a consequence of Prime Minister V.P. Singh's effort to divide the Hindu community, the BJP launched a Hindutva campaign that resulted in Muslim pogroms following the storming of the Ayodhya mosque in December 1992. The subsequent alienation of Muslims from the established parties further fragmented the polity. In the 10 years between 1999 and 2009, the national parties' percentage of the votes cast has fallen from 20.11 per cent to 16.24 per cent (Jaffrelot and Verniers, 2009, p. 24), a fraction of their share in Goa. While there appear to be three entities on the national scene, the BJP, the Congress and a smaller left grouping, none can govern without first creating a coalition with regional parties. While an argument can be made that the fragmentation of Indian politics has made the country more democratic (Varshney, 2000), no one can claim that to be the case in Goa. Conclusion Goa's politics were different immediately after its incorporation into the Indian Union. The territory's lack of ties with the polity of the rest of the country and its insularity under Portuguese rule -- a system devoid of politics -- ensured that outcome. Under the circumstance of the imposition of a new form of government imposed from outside on an entity that lacked existing institutions, it is not surprising that Goa's first political parties -- the MG and the UG --were communal in nature. This occurred during a period when the secular INC dominated the rest of the country. When the Congress finally prevailed in Goa, it was a regional -- not a national party -- that came to office. However, over time with integration with the rest of India and the migration of people from other states, national parties eventually displaced their regional antecedents. By 1998 the BJP replaced the MGP as the choice of younger Hindu voters. As a consequence, Goa's party system became a binary contest between the BJP and the Congress. Although rump and splinter parties remain as residual factions, Goa's politics have consolidated at a time when national politics have fragmented. Nevertheless, the state's politics replicate the national system's characteristics of coalition governments, unstable administrations and rampant defections. We should expect such an outcome in a federal system. Notes ----- 1. Paper presented at the International Conference 'Goa 1961 & Beyond', Goa University, Goa, India, 19 December 2011. The author acknowledges funding from the Asian Institute, the Department of Political Science, the Social Division at the Scarborough Campus, and Victoria College of the University of Toronto that made his participation possible. 2. India, Lok Sabha Debates, Third Series, 21 May 1962, Vol. III, No. 26, columns 5539-40. 3. Legislative Assembly of Goa, Daman & Diu, Debates, Vol. II, No. 5, 22 January 1965, p. 151. 4. According to polls conducted by Peter Ronald de Souza for the Herald in May 1991. References ---------- Amonkar, Suresh G., Gaitonde, Pundalik D., Dias, Enfemiano, Dulco, Gurudas, & Tamba, Mohan. (n.d.). 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