Margao: As Goa heads towards the 2027 assembly polls, the popular perception has been that the opposition is in disarray while BJP sits comfortably, watching its rivals fall apart. The picture, on closer look, is not quite so one-sided.Congress is in the middle of internal dissent. State president Girish Chodankar’s return to the GPCC helm has spawned a breakaway bid, the formation of ‘Goa Congress Party’, which Chodankar himself has termed a BJP-funded plot to fracture the “secular vote” in Salcete. Political analysts view it differently—as disgruntled functionaries and ticket aspirants, sidelined by the leadership change, settling scores rather than pursuing any ideological viewpoint. An open letter to AICC general secretary K C Venugopal, questioning the absence of a second line of leadership and the party’s failure to reconstitute its political affairs committee since 2022, has only added to the impression of a house not yet in order.Revolutionary Goans, once billed as the credible third force that polled nearly 10% of the vote in 2022, has all but collapsed following Manoj Parab’s resignation and his very public falling-out with the party’s lone MLA, Viresh Borkar. Political analysts say the party never built the booth-level machinery to convert popularity it gained through the anti-39A agitation into durable political capital—and that its young, restless voter base could now drift away to other parties.AAP, for its part, has performed a striking about-turn, offering an olive branch to the very Congress it has attacked in Delhi, Punjab, and Gujarat, having burnt its fingers going solo in the zilla panchayat polls in Dec 2025. And the Goa Forward Party, as political analysts observed, remains a one-man, one-constituency phenomenon. “The glitter of Vijai Sardesai the MLA has not translated into the glitter of the party beyond Fatorda,” said political commentor Prabhakar Timble.Political observers say that even as this scramble for opposition unity plays out, the governing party is far from immune to its own tremors. In more than one constituency in South Goa, sitting BJP MLAs find themselves being challenged by new ticket aspirants. In Curchorem and Sanvordem, leadership ambitions from within the party cadre itself have begun to unsettle the incumbents.The disquiet is palpable in North Goa as well. In Pernem, Manohar ‘Babu’ Ajgaonkar—who contested from Margao on a BJP ticket in the last election—is now said to be eyeing a switch back to Pernem, currently held by BJP’s Pravin Arlekar, setting up a potential claim on a sitting MLA’s turf.In Ponda, where BJP’s Ritesh Naik is gearing up for the polls after the demise of his father Ravi Naik who represented the constituency, BJP ally MGP’s move to open a party office in the constituency has stirred resentment within the BJP camp.Taken together, political observers say that the 2027 picture is not simply BJP versus a fractured opposition but of both camps struggling—“the opposition racing to build an alliance before it frays further, and BJP working quietly to keep its own house in order”.
