It might be India’s smallest state geographically but Goa has managed to expose the conundrum that the Congress and the Trinamool Congress find themselves in – two parties with national ambitions and footprint held back by political realities from mounting a joint challenge to the ruling BJP.
For the Congress, Goa is critical for two reasons. In previous elections, it was a straight up contest between the grand old party and the BJP. But given the recent rise of smaller parties, it is in the Congress’ interest to keep the contest bipolar to reinforce its pitch of being the sole challenger to the BJP in the national arena as well.
Goa is also important for the Congress this time because its failure to form the government in the state in 2017 is attributed to utter confusion and lack of fire-fighting within the party. It is said that senior leader Digvijaya Singh, who was then in-charge of the state affairs, tried to get in touch with Rahul Gandhi office as many interested independent MLAs were kept waiting. No response came from Gandhi’s office and the BJP swooped in to form the government. It’s a prestige issue for the Congress this time to make sure it gets its act together.
The Trinamool Congress began its outreach in Goa by projecting itself as the only alternative to the BJP. It, in fact, took potshots at the Congress for failing to form the government back in 2017. “We are not like the Congress. We work 24×7 and we can form governments,” TMC leader Abhishek Bannerjee had said.
The spat between TMC’s Mahua Moitra and senior Congress leader P Chidambaram made matters worse and the grand old party made it clear it was going solo in Goa.
But Mamata Banerjee’s party soon realised that these spats were only helping the BJP and reached out to the Congress to put some figures on the table. It reportedly said eight of the 40 seats in Goa could be given to the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP), while the other 32 could be divided between the TMC and the Congress. It even offered Congress 17 seats, keeping smaller chunk of 15 for itself.
The Congress waited for Rahul Gandhi to return from abroad. When he did, Gandhi held a meeting with KC Venugopal and Dinesh Gundu Rao. The party then made it clear that it won’t enter into any alliance with the Trinamool Congress or any other party, barring the smaller ones in Goa.
Instead, sources said, Rahul Gandhi told his party colleagues that Congress will pay the TMC back in the same coin. The party tried to bring back to its fold those who had left to join the TMC. It remained in touch with Aleixo Reginald Lourenco, a sitting MLA who had joined the TMC in Mamata Banerjee’s presence. It paid off when Lourenco returned to the Congress. Sources said the Congress is in touch with many other leaders as per Rahul Gandhi’s plan.
But the opposition sees the bigger picture in the Congress and TMC’s tug-of-war. Sources told News18 that NCP leader Sharad Pawar has conveyed to Sonia Gandhi twice that both parties must forget their ego tussle and join hands. While Mamata Banerjee was open to the idea, insiders say Rahul Gandhi wasn’t too keen.
Sonia Gandhi has reportedly left the decision to her son though she knows from experience that for the larger political goal of challenging the BJP, it is important to, at times, bite the dust as she did in 2004 to form the UPA later.
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