As exit polls predict hung assembly in Goa, BJP, Cong scurry to stitch alliances

With exit polls predicting a hung assembly in Goa and no clear winner on the horizon, the BJP and the Congress are busy engineering last-minute strategies to come to power in the coastal state.

Goa Chief Minister Pramod Sawant, who has exuded confidence in the BJP’s win, is in Delhi to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi to discuss about the party’s prospects in the state.

“I had not met the PM after the election, so I am meeting him just to discuss how the election was. There are exit polls coming, what our surveys say, to give him a detailed idea of what can happen, about government formation…We are fully confident that the BJP will get a full majority and form the government. If we fall short of a seat or two, there are Independents who can win and support us,” he told reporters on Tuesday.

Sawant’s meeting with the prime minister comes a day after the state BJP unit held discussions with the election agents of the party.

The Goa chief minister is later scheduled to meet BJP’s Goa in-charge Devendra Fadnavis.

Exit polls as well as experts predict neither the BJP nor the Congress will have a comfortable majority or win at least 21 seats on its own.

At this juncture, reports said the BJP is trying to stitch an alliance with the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) and other independents. The MGP, however, is reportedly not keen to rally behind Sawant, who had dropped the party from the Goa cabinet after he became the chief minister following the demise of Manohar Parrikar in 2019. Reports say the party may agree to come aboard only if the BJP relinquishes the chief minister’s post and sidelines Sawant.

The Congress is ready to bury its hatchet with the AAP and Trinamool Congress – rivals in West Bengal and Punjab – for now, and has indicated that it would ally with “any party that opposes the BJP”.

The exit polls have predicted a couple of seats for the AAP and five to nine seats for Goa debutant TMC. Both the BJP and Congress are predicted to win 16 seats each in the 40-member assembly, falling short of the majority mark of 21.

If the predictions are right, either AAP or TMC will play the kingmaker in the event of a hung assembly.

In 2017, the Congress won 17 seats to become the single largest party, but its delay to form alliances, helped the BJP turn the tables. Despite winning 13 seats, the BJP formed government by securing the support of the Goa Forward Party and the MGP, which had won three seats each, and two Independents.

To avoid a recurrence of the 2017 debacle, the Congress has sent its senior leaders P Chidambaram and DK Shivakumar to broker deals with the possible “kingmakers”.