Goa Election 2017: AAP’s Elvis Gomes is economically liberal, socially inclusive and steers clear of unstable coalition

Elvis Gomes, the man who would be the chief minister if the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) were to win in Goa, would probably have been working files in a government office if he had been promoted from the state cadre to the IAS when he was empanelled.

But, when he was passed over in 2013, he petitioned a court against nepotism. Since then, he has obtained a judgment criticising the establishment (headed at that time by current Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar), has resigned from government service (in September 2016), joined AAP (in October), and been declared its chief ministerial candidate (in December).

Clearly, 54-year-old Gomes is a fighter who won’t accept what he perceives as injustice. He looks nondescript enough in a shirt with tiny red and fawn checks, going over sheets of paper with a colleague in a makeshift office-cum-temporary-home-and-camp-headquarters — the apartment of a young camp follower in his constituency Concolim.

For, as a hectic campaign schedule reaches a frenetic peak, Gomes has set aside a couple of hours for ‘office work.’ He turns out to be an efficient, well-informed man, with the style of an on-site engineer — more knitted brows and brusque hand signals than fussy charm.

His vision of governance is liberal in the economic sense — ‘hassle-free public services’ obtained through ’non-dependence on MLAs’; he wants ‘reduction of interface’ with the government.

He explains that the 50,000 jobs the party has promised would be generated over five years, and not so much government jobs as productive ones generated in close collaboration with the private sector, particularly in services.

Asked about mining, he says, “We have gone with (environmental activist) Claude Alvarez’s agenda of sustainable mining.” So, mining would continue, but strictly regulated. Illegal mining (which apparently became a wing of the politics and governance of Goa under the Congress) would not be allowed. Indeed, “eradication of corruption” would be his chief agenda, he says.

No to horse-trading

Gomes is not intent on power, though. In the event his party does not get a majority, he says, “We would rather be a principled and strong Opposition.” He is clear that AAP cannot ally with the BJP, the Congress or even the Goa-based MGP — which he calls completely communal.

In fact, in the style of his mentor, AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal, he does not shy away from criticising all his opponents acerbically. The BJP, says he, are “communal and corrupt” while the Congress are “corrupt and communal.”

He adds that the BJP hates certain communities, including (some Hindu communities). As for the NCP, it ‘is a BJP plant.’ So is the Goa Vikas Party, in his view. And Goa Forward is ‘a one-man party for Vijay Sardesai.’ Not just that, “they are all together. They have done their fixing.”

According to Gomes, their common agenda is to defeat AAP.

Gomes trains his guns most intently on Parrikar. “He bluffed,” says Gomes — on the medium of instruction, on casinos, on a special status for the state, etc. When I bring up Parrikar’s clean image, he responds that “corruption hit the roof” under Parrikar.

Further, Gomes accuses BJP and Congress regimes of being elitist in social terms. “We have given tickets to lower castes (among both Hindus and Christians), and to the young,” he says.

Gomes insists that AAP is not backed mainly by Goa’s Christians, insisting that young people of every community back it widely. Since Kejriwal’s public meeting in Panjim on 19 December (at which he was declared the state leader), he says, “We have only grown, and we are only growing.”

No doubt, until last week, the ‘zhaadu yatra’ of AAP’s broom election symbol was more visible across the state than any other party’s campaign, but AAP has a huge challenge to establish itself against long-established parties.

The fact that Gomes spends his time campaigning in Concolim, his home constituency — just like chief minister Laxmikant Parsekar of the BJP, and various former chief ministers of the Congress — indicates that AAP cannot take any victory for granted any more than any other party in the fractured, many-horse race in Goa.