Assembly polls: Multiple high-stakes battles in Goa contest

Battle lines are drawn in Goa ahead of the assembly polls with the lists declared by all major political parties well ahead of the final date of nominations serving up more than a few heavyweight clashes that will be keenly watched as the state goes to the polls. Here is a look at some of them.

Panaji: Utpal Parrikar (Independent) vs Atanasio Monserrate (BJP)

At the top of the list of key battles -- pitched as one for the “soul of the BJP” -- features Utpal Parrikar, the son of former Union defence minister and four-time Goa chief minister Manohar Parrikar and the party’s officially nominated candidate Atanasio “Babush” Monserrate.

In its statutory public declaration of the criminal antecedents of candidates, the BJP said it was choosing Monserrate because he “can best represent the aspirations of the people”. The leader faces charges of rape, rioting, and assault -- all of which he has denied. He is seeking election from Panaji for the second time, and the first time from the BJP, which he joined along with nine other Congress MLAs in 2019 as part of a mass defection.

A seat that was traditionally a Congress seat turned into a BJP seat after Mahohar Parrikar first contested from the seat and won it back in 1994 thanks to a split in the vote between two rival Congress candidates. Parrikar represented the seat since then, and when he moved to Delhi to take charge as the country’s defence minister, he ensured that the BJP-nominated Siddharth Kuncaliencar won. Monserrate’s first shot at the Panaji seat proved unsuccessful, losing to the Kuncaliencar at the 2017 polls. It was at the second attempt in -- the bypoll to fill the vacancy resulting from Parrikar’s death in 2019 -- that Monserrate emerged successful as a Congress candidate defeating Kuncaliencar.

Doubts remain over whether Utpal Parrikar, who has little political experience and hasn’t yet walked the length and breadth of the constituency, can be successful against a seasoned politician well-versed in the finer elements of election management, solely on the power of his surname.

Hoping to benefit from the split is the Congress candidate Elvis Gomes, a former bureaucrat who served as Panaji’s commissioner across several stints, and who was earlier the state convener of the Aam Aadmi Party.

Margao: Digambar Kamat (Congress) vs Manohar Ajgaonkar (BJP)

In the south Goa district headquarters of Margao, former chief minister Digambar Kamat is pitted against tourism minister Manohar Ajagaonkar. Ajgaonkar, who hails from Margao and has been a municipal councillor, has never represented the constituency before. His battleground has been the North constituency of Dhargal/Pernem, which he has represented twice. Increasingly unpopular in the constituency due to anti-incumbency, the BJP leadership decided to deny him that ticket, and instead offered that he contest against the Leader of Opposition for the seat the BJP has been struggling to find a candidate for.

Kamat, on the other hand, has been representing the Margao constituency since 1994 -- first on a BJP ticket and then as a Congress legislator after he switched sides in 2005. He will, however, face his toughest challenge yet against Ajgaonkar, who served in his council of ministers between 2007 and 2012.

Mandrem: Laxmikant Parsekar (Independent) vs Dayanand Sopte (BJP)

Former Goa chief minister Laxmikant Parsekar quit the BJP in a huff on Saturday. A leader who earned ignominy as a sitting chief minister who lost his election, Parsekar will be up against the man who defeated him in 2017. Sopte was with the Congress at the time.

Parsekar is miffed with the party leadership for handing the ticket from Mandrem, a coastal constituency in North Goa that includes the picturesque beaches of Arambol and Morjim, to Sopte. Sopte, who used to be with the BJP in the past as well, shifted to the Congress prior to the 2012 assembly elections after his seat Pernem was subsumed with another during a delimitation exercise, and contested from Mandrem against Parsekar. Unsuccessful, he remained with the Congress, tried again five years later, and this time proved victorious. In 2018, Sopte resigned from the party, and was welcomed into the BJP, much to Parsekar’s displeasure. After the party’s decision to choose Sopte over him, Parsekar has said he’s going it alone.

The two are up against the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party’s (MGP) Jit Arolkar, a businessman and first-time candidate whose popularity has grown over the years in the area.

Poriem: Pratapsingh Rane (Congress) vs Divya Rane (BJP)

Will senior Congress leader and former chief minister Pratapsingh Rane run for office one final time? The octogenarian six-timeCM has kept his cards close to his chest despite being named as the Congress candidate for the Poriem seat.

Rane has never lost an election. A 10-term legislator, he is Goa’s longest-serving MLA representing his seat since 1972 -- starting with the former legislative assembly of the Union territory of Goa, Daman and Diu, until Goa got full statehood in 1987. He also holds a record for having served as chief minister (first of the UT and then of the state) for 16 years in different stints between 1980 and 2007. He was assembly speaker between 2007 and 2012.

Now 82, Rane has been offered lifetime cabinet status by the ruling BJP in a bid to dissuade him from contesting, but has done a series of flip flops -- first saying his workers want him to contest, and then that it was perhaps time to call it a day. Rane was present at the meeting of Congress candidates on Saturday afternoon, but wasn’t among the 36 who went to pledge before the temple, church and dargah that they will not change sides after the polls.

Should he contest, Rane will be up against his daughter-in-law Divya Rane, who has been named as the BJP’s candidate. Son Vishwajit had earlier said that the matter would be resolved “internally within the family”, hinting that this clash may not materialise.

Fatorda: Vijai Sardesai (GFP) vs Luizinho Faleiro (TMC)

The Trinamool Congress (TMC) took everyone by surprise when, in its first list of candidates, it declared that former Goa chief minister Luizinho Faleiro was being fielded from the Fatorda seat represented by Goa Forward Party supremo Vijai Sardesai.

Rajya Sabha MP Faleiro counts the Navelim constituency, located on one side of the Margao town, as his stronghold. There is a connection between the two constituencies though. Back when Goa was a Union territory with a 30-member legislative assembly, the two constituencies were part of a single Navelim constituency. Faleiro was an MLA then too, but much has changed since.

Sardesai, a two-term MLA from the constituency, is eager to defend his turf from the party he snubbed in favour of the Congress for a pre-poll alliance. Hoping to win the seat at the expense of the two is former MLA Damodar “Damu” Naikof the BJP, who is eager for a repeat in the vote split that helped him win the seat in 2007.

Benaulim: Churchill Alemao (TMC) vs Venzy Viegas (AAP)

Veteran Goa politician Churchill Alemao has been a mainstay of Goa’s political scene since the late 1980s. A former chief minister, he declared earlier this month that the 2022 elections will be his last.

Eager to ruin his farewell party is a young and meticulous first-time contestant Venzy Viegas of the Aam Aadmi Party. A mariner by profession, having risen up to the rank of captain in the merchant navy, Viegas has been steadily gaining popularity in the constituency that has a fair share of seafarers locally referred to as “shippies” and even ensured that the party’s candidate won the district panchayat polls held a little more than a year ago.

Benaulim was the lone constituency where the AAP candidate was able to save her deposit in 2017, and this time the finish line is in sight as the party contests the elections with renewed vigour.