Both of them contested the elections and lost the seat to Jit Arolkar of the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP). Former Goa chief minister Laxmikant Parsekar, who has represented Mandrem, the North Goa coastal constituency, for three consecutive terms, left the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 2022 after the party chose to field Dayanand Sopte from the seat.
Its dominance continued through the 1960s and 1970s until the Congress unseated it. “I’m the MGP party legislator and will contest on an MGP ticket. MGP and BJP will contest elections together, so where is the question of going against them? We are in an alliance right now,” he added. BJP leader and Goa transport minister Mauvin Godinho has backed Arolkar, urging people to re-elect the MGP legislator. But the remark hasn’t gone down well with colleagues in Godinho’s own party. BJP state president Damodar Naik insisted that relations between the two allies were on track. “There is no ill will between anybody…The right decision will be taken at the right time.
The Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party gave Goa its first chief minister in 1963 after its integration with India in December 1961. It aligned with the BJP between 2000 and 2005, with the Congress between 2007 and 2012, and then with the BJP since then. Across this period, the only pre-poll alliance with the BJP was in 2012 when the two parties came together to defeat the Congress. In 2019, despite being part of the ruling alliance, the MGP fielded candidates against the BJP in that year’s by-polls.
This time, the BJP and the MGP have said they will contest the election in an alliance, a point Arolkar notes when asked about the joint challenge from Parsekar and Sopte. Arolkar said anyone could ask their own party for a ticket. Everything is just speculation at the moment,” he said.
The tug-of-war over Mandrem is one among several seat-sharing disputes expected to play out as both the BJP and the Congress navigate delicate pre-poll negotiations with their regional partners.
