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Let’s unite against BJP, Goa’s Sardesai reaches out to TMC. Cong may be target
Goa Forward Party Vijai Sardesai, who had earlier sounded out the Congress for an anti-BJP alliance, said the fundamental objective must be to destroy the BJP at any cost.
PANAJI: Goa Forward Party’s (GPF) Vijay Sardesai on Monday continued his search for an alliance partner for next year’s assembly elections after the Congress rebuffed his initial offer, declaring that parties opposed to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party cannot sit idle and should get into action.
“We Goemkars (Goans) have to awaken the Durga in each of us, draw from the positivity of the orange colour, symbolic of Day four where Goddess Kushmanda is worshipped, and surge forward,” Sardesai said on Monday.
The emphasis on Goddess Durga in his appeal for a possible alliance on Monday was seen to be aimed at the West Bengal-headquartered Trinamool Congress led by Mamata Banerjee which renewed efforts to expand its base in Goa and last week inducted former chief minister Luizinho Faleiro.
“It’s a shame. But we cannot sit idle forever and waste time because of the inefficiency and indecision of others. To save Goa from complete ruin, we have to act!” he added.
“Our fundamental objective must be to defeat the BJP at any cost, and we have to become street fighters on every Goan street to achieve that. Narakasura (the mythical demon king) has to be destroyed and we need all the help we can get,” Sardesai said.
The 51-year-old politician, who started out with the Congress but branched out after being denied a ticket in 2012, also took a swipe at the Goa Congress.
“For the last 2 years, we have been rooting forcefully for a united Team Goa to challenge and defeat the corrupt anti-Goan BJP before it destroys Goa completely. Unfortunately, it has fallen on deaf ears with the principal opposition party (Congress) abdicating its duty and responsibility to heed the call or at least come halfway to fulfil this strong desire of the people to throw out the BJP,” Sardesai said.
In recent weeks, Congress leaders have rejected his offers more than once, underlining that he should have displayed the same enthusiasm to block the BJP in 2017.
Sardesai, who set up the GFP in 2016 ahead of the 2017 state assembly elections, led a sharp campaign against the BJP on the four seats contested by his freshly-minted party. GFP candidates won three of them. But after the results were out, he negotiated a deal with the BJP that enabled Manohar Parrikar to form the government. In exchange, Sardesai became Goa’s deputy chief minister; his two MLAs also got ministerial berths.
But the three GFP lawmakers were unceremoniously evicted from the Goa cabinet in July 2019 by chief minister Pramod Sawant after 10 Congress MLAs en masse switched to the BJP.
Sardesai withdrew support from the Sawant-led government but stayed put in the NDA till April this year.
Prepping for the assembly elections in January-February next year, Sardesai has lately sharpened his attacks on the BJP.
A Trinamool Congress leader in Goa insisted that the Mamata Banerjee-led party wasn’t in talks with Sardesai but stressed that the party was looking to unite parties opposed to the BJP.
In principle, it was a point that was articulated by the Congress Goa in-charge Dinesh Gundu Rao as well. “We are willing to come together with like-minded people and parties who hold secular principles, who have been in Goa for a long time. We are willing to talk and have been talking. In the interest of Goa, we are ready for this,” Rao said last week.
Former Union finance minister P Chidambaram, the Congress’ election observer for the state, said the party’s priority, for now, is to strengthen itself rather than enter into negotiations over alliances.
It is also being pointed out that Vijai Sardesai and leader of the TMC’s Goa unit, Luizinho Faleiro, don’t get along. Faleiro, who led the Congress unit and hoped to become chief minister in 2017, was one of the reasons cited by the Vijay Sardesai camp to explain why its three MLAs backed the BJP rather than the Congress
Political analyst Cleofato Almeida Coutinho said Sardesai’s overtures to the TMC could be aimed at the Congress. “It appears that this is more of a threat to the Congress that if you do not align with me, I am willing to explore other alliance partners and even with the TMC,” Coutinho, a lawyer, said.
