In a dramatic turn of events for the Congress party, eight of its MLAs in Goa resigned and joined the BJP on Wednesday. Among them was former chief minister Digambar Kamat and the leader of opposition Michael Lobo.
The defections are a blow to the grand old party, given that it had only 11 MLAs in the state. This means that two-thirds of its total strength in the assembly is now gone. Notably, the move came just months after a similar attempt by Kamat and Lobo to split the party in the state was thwarted in July.
The Goa defections have opened a conversation on why the opposition can't make its members stick.
The Delhi edition of the Indian Express carried an editorial on the defections with a focus on this very question. “Fidelity to a party or an ideology is rare in Goan politics: centred around leaders who command a few thousand votes in tiny constituencies, it has allowed legislators to party-hop brazenly without facing the censure of their voters,” it says.
Commenting on how it reflects on the political system, the editorial says, “The latest cross-over in Goa, which follows similar developments in Arunachal Pradesh (2018), Karnataka (2019), Madhya Pradesh (2020), West Bengal (2021), Gujarat (2018-19) etc., deepen a vulnerability in the political system.”
“At its heart lies the inability of the opposition parties to keep their flock together in the face of the BJP’s predatory instinct to expand its footprint and win new territories,” the editorial says. It goes on to say that the only “glue that seems to be holding the non-BJP parties together is power”, and mentions how most of these outfits have become family fiefdoms instead of grass-roots political organisations.
“Clearly, the inflow into the BJP is as much a result of the Opposition’s failure to offer hope to ambitious leaders in its ranks, as it is the outcome of the former’s approach of winner should take it all,” the editorial says. On the anti defection law, the editorial says the law has lost its edge “as legislators are either shifting in large groups even at the risk of getting disqualified”.
The Hindustan Times also carried an editorial in its Delhi edition. The editorial says that the defections have been damaging to the Congress for two reasons. The first reason being that the Congress finds its leadership in the state “decimated”. The second is that the party was “politically outmanoeuvred” by the BJP, despite its efforts to solve the issues within the party in July.
“It also hasn’t missed anyone’s attention that the defections have happened against the backdrop of the party’s biggest public outreach effort in years, the Bharat Jodo Yatra. The Congress’s vulnerability will lower its stock at a time of intense jostling in the national Opposition space,” the editorial says.
Pointing to a “curious trend” in Goa, the editorial says, “The spate of defections indicates that voters tend not to judge lawmakers harshly for abandoning ideologies or party folds; and that local spheres of influence hold more importance in the state’s politics.”
It adds, “This transactional relationship between voters and their representatives is a challenge to not only the anti-defection law (which premises itself on prioritising the party over the lawmaker), but also electoral politics itself."
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