In BJP quest to win Congress’s South Goa stronghold, one taluka holds the key

On April 16, Felipe Neri Cardinal Ferrao, the Archbishop of Goa and Daman, issued a circular urging Catholics to vote for candidates with secular credentials “committed to upholding the values enshrined in the Constitution”.

The archbishop also appealed to Catholics to exercise their vote and refrain from going to Velankanni, a prominent pilgrimage site in Tamil Nadu, on the eve of the Lok Sabha polls in Goa on May 7. The circular was issued after rumours surfaced on social media about a “conspiracy” by the BJP to ensure Catholics miss voting on the pretext of the pilgrimage.

The following day, Goa Chief Minister Pramod Sawant was quick to underline that his party was “secular”, saying he welcomed the Archbishop’s call. “The BJP government has spent money for the upkeep of Churches of Old Goa and the exposition of the relics of St Francis Xavier. The BJP government revived the minority commissions in Goa and nationally. If any party is secular, it is the BJP,” Sawant told reporters.

The CM’s statement reflects the BJP’s outreach efforts as it attempts to make inroads into the Catholic-dominated belt in the South Goa seat, which has traditionally been a Congress stronghold. Since Goa’s liberation from Portuguese rule in 1961, the Congress has won South Goa 10 times, while the BJP has won it only twice (in 1999 and 2014).

In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the Congress’s Francisco Sardinha defeated the BJP’s Narendra Sawaikar by a narrow margin of 9,755 votes. This time, the Congress has picked retired Naval officer and Kargil war veteran Captain Viriato Fernandes over Sardinha. Fernandes is pitted against industrialist Pallavi Dempo, the first woman candidate fielded by the BJP in Goa in a parliamentary election and one of the