Margao: On turf the BJP long considered its own, Congress’s Goy Rakhon Yatra has whipped up euphoria among party workers and seized the early momentum ahead of the 2027 assembly polls.Voter outreach through constituency tours has been the hallmark of BJP’s election campaigns. In 1999, North Goa MP Shripad Naik led the “Sampark yatra”, which took the party’s tally from four seats to 10. Manohar Parrikar immortalised the exercise by staying at karyakartas’ homes during his Jan Sampark Abhiyan of 2011, with ‘parivartan’ (change) as its slogan. It endeared him, and in effect his party, to the grassroots, and fetched BJP an absolute majority for the first time in 2012 — 21 seats, up from 14.Congress is now determined to beat BJP at its own game, and BJP has responded with its ‘Sarkar Tumchea Dari’ initiative to counter the Opposition’s campaign over illegal land conversion, corruption, unemployment and drugs. Whether Congress can sustain the momentum against BJP’s blitzkrieg is anybody’s guess.Political observers agree the yatra has changed the Opposition’s fortunes, but differ on how long the gains will last.“Congress needed something like this,” said academician and political observer Manoj Kamat. “The voters were fragmented and there was no movement for four and a half years. The instrument was right. The question is whether the timing was right, and it was not.”Kamat said the party is “not a united house” with 2-3 ticket aspirants emerging in every constituency. “Unless you decide on a particular leader for a constituency, you are telling everybody they will get the ticket. That is not how it works,” he said. He also said Congress sent the wrong signal to potential allies. While GFP’s Vijai Sardesai kept calling for a grand alliance, Congress appeared uninterested, and AAP is still averse to having any truck with Congress. “The first question people ask is why the grand alliance isn’t happening,” Kamat said, and Congress has no convincing answers.Lawyer and political commentator Cleofato Coutinho, however, said the yatra has achieved something Congress had been unable to in years. “It has created a situation where Congress is seen to exist, and not only to exist but to be seen as a challenger,” he said.He said the yatra has also given Leader of Opposition Yuri Alemao a pan-Goa image. “They never had a face in the past four years,” Coutinho said.On the question whether Congress would be able to sustain the momentum it has built during the yatra, Coutinho shot back: “Who would have even believed they could hold such a yatra? It requires organisation, it requires money. Somehow they have managed it,” he said.Both Kamat and Coutinho, however, agree that holding on to the momentum is the real test. “A small wrong choice of candidate, even in one or two places, and they could fritter away whatever they have gained,” Coutinho said. Kamat said Congress has also created a big accountability for itself, and that sustaining the yatra will be a challenge. The next 10 days are crucial, he said. Congress must show that there is an alliance and that it is accommodating, “otherwise it will not sustain.” Once the yatra ends, he said, there will be no engagement, unlike BJP’s continuous worker-level connect.BJP, meanwhile, appears to be in no hurry. Kamat said the party is conserving its energy, galvanising workers and focusing on organisation and training. “BJP has to do nothing,” Kamat said. “Just wait for Congress to lose all its steam. As for the Congress, it has a huge opportunity as BJP is on the defensive; Congress has to capitalise on the situation — now.”
