They were just three seats of the two Zilla Panchayats that went to the by-elections as they had been vacated by the former representatives who had got elected as MLAs earlier this year. The turnout was low, below 50 per cent so the results may not give a very correct picture of the mood of the voters, but when the results were counted, the Bharatiya Janata Party had swept them. The ruling party candidates won two of the seats, and one was taken by an Independent candidate whose husband an Independent MLA is supporting the BJP government.
The results were in keeping with the trend of two other elections this year, where BJP won 20 of the 40 Assembly seats in the February 2022 elections and then in August claimed to have got 140 of the 186 village panchayats that had gone to the polls. The village panchayat polls are not held on party lines, so one has to depend on party claims. In three elections this year, the BJP has triumphed in all, strengthening its position in the State. The party in government usually tends to have an edge in the local by-elections. This result does not buck that trend.
Despite the low voter turnout in the by-elections, it is clear that the BJP vote share in the State is not getting disturbed or divided. On the other hand, the Congress that has been seeing a consistent fall in its vote share may have suffered further erosion and it would have to act on this, to remain a relevant political party in the State. Claiming the vote share that the Congress is losing are the Aam Aadmi Party and the Revolutionary Goans Party.
To find out how the Congress fared, one actually had to look closely at the results, as the opposition party was not even second in any of the seats. It was third in Davorlim and Cortalim, fourth in Reis Magos. On the other hand, the Revolutionary Goans Party and the Aam Aadmi Party performed better. An Independent backed by Revolutionary Goans Party was second in Cortalim and Aam Aadmi Party was second in Davorlim.
A month after eight of its party MLAs deserted the Congress and went over to the BJP, and against the backdrop of the Congress statements of rebuilding itself in Goa, the Zilla Panchayat by-elections results are not good news to it or its future plans. The Lok Sabha elections are some 18 months away and unless the party is able to rebuild, as it promises to do, it will fare just as badly.
To rebuild, Congress has to first review, recover and restructure. That will be a tall order for a party that has till now displayed a complete lack of strategy and ability. To date, there has been no review conducted since the defections, perhaps not even since the election debacle. Unless the ground situation is completely mapped, the rebuilding exercise will be futile. But is it currently capable of this?
Take the ZP Reis Magos seat as an example of how Congress has faltered. This seat was vacated by the MLA elected on a Congress ticket, who later defected to the BJP. One would imagine that the Congress would go all out here to wrest the seat. The Congress came a distant fourth here, behind two Independents and getting less than 10 per cent of the votes that the winning BJP candidate mustered. Was there any strategy, or even any interest to win displayed by the party in this ZP constituency?
Congress desperately needed a win in these by-elections after the defections to boost the morale of its workers and to show the electorate that the passion for winning still exists. It let slip an opportunity that could redeem itself in the eyes of the voters. A win here would have made a huge difference to the Congress rebuilding exercise.
Who grabbed the opportunity presented by the by-elections to show that they are a political force in the State are the Aam Aadmi Party and the Revolutionary Goans Party. Neither has won, but they have shown that they are here to stay and are to be taken seriously by the electorate. Congress, therefore, now has to not just ward off the BJP but also take into account these other parties in its strategising.
Goa has now truly become a multi-party democracy, with one party – Bharatiya Janata Party – the stronger force and several other parties seeking to emerge as the challenger by displacing the Congress. The real test will be the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the results of which could give a clear picture of what the lineup for the 2027 Assembly elections will be. For now, it is going to be a struggle for the Congress to retain the voter base and build further on it.