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BJP may launch Goa poll campaign this week

Sandesh Prabhudesai in Panaji

The Bharatiya Janata Party plans to launch its election campaign for the Goa assembly election this week.

The party's Goa unit hopes the BJP's four-day national executive meeting -- beginning on Friday -- will pay rich dividends.

To be held at the Goa International Centre, the meeting will be attended by 150 BJP leaders including party president Shashikant 'Kushabhau' Thakre and Union Home Minister Lal Kishenchand Advani. Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee will address a public rally in Panjim on Saturday.

As the assembly election is likely to be held by May-end, the party has already started mobilising people in the villages for the public meeting.

In order to woo voters, Minister of State for Railways Ram Naik may announce the recommissioning of the Vasco-Londa passenger railway service. The service was closed due to technical problems after the line was converted to broad gauge.

As if to steal the credit from the BJP in this regard, Congress MP Francisco Sardinha yesterday staged a rail roko, demanding the restoration of the service.

As Goa's industrial development has come to a grinding halt due to acute power shortage and the high court ban on new power connections, Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Gopinath Munde is expected to announce the release of around 100 MW of power to the state from the Enron power project.

With such decisions, the BJP hopes to surpass its performance in the last assembly election, when it won four seats.

BJP Goa leader Sharad Kulkarni says his party will go it alone this time. He, however, did not rule out the possibility of having seat adjustments with 'like-minded' parties.

Sources says the BJP may align with the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party.

The MGP and another regional party, the United Goans Democratic Party have kept their options open as former chief minister Wilfred de Souza's Goa Rajiv Congress is trying to form a regional front, sidelining the BJP.

The BJP, which was a non-entity in Goa till the 1991 general election, has now emerged as a political force by systematically building its base.

After polling around 18 per cent votes in the 1991 and 1996 Lok Sabha polls, the BJP leapt to the 30 per cent mark in the last poll. However, thanks to the division of votes in the Opposition, Congress nominees won both Lok Sabha seats last year.

In the 1994 assembly poll, the BJP had polled around 29 per cent votes by contesting 12 seats in alliance with the MGP and the Shiv Sena.

However, the recent attacks against Christians in several parts of the country may affect the party's chances.

The BJP is banking on the 'clean' track record of its legislators in a state ravaged by mindless defections. As if to give it a jolt on this front too, a top BJP leader, who had contested the last Lok Sabha election unsuccessfully, has joined the Congress.

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