The political heat in the tropical State appears to have risen several notches, especially with two recently released election surveys, taking a dim view of the ruling BJP's chances of pulling off a successive win in the upcoming 2017 State legislative elections.
The two surveys, one released by a new polling and marketing agency Advaita Teertha and the other by a local cable news channel, have revealed that the BJP would win 11 seats and 17-18 seats in the 40 member Goa legislative Assembly respectively, if elections were held now.
The statistics generated by the two poll surveys is far cry from the 28 seats, which State Bharatiya Janata Party president Vinay Tendulkar, has repeatedly claimed the party would win in 2017 Assembly polls.
"About the Advaita survey especially, I do not know what to say. We have found out that the company itself was formed 30 days before the survey was released. A survey takes a lot longer than 30 days," Tendulkar told The Pioneer.
Tendulkar however did not fault the second survey conducted by Prudent Media, a local cable news channel, by too much. "They have given us 17-18 seats. But looks like that have not taken into account the performance of our alliance partners. With that we will cross the winning mark," Tendulkar said.
The two surveys released on August 14 and 15 respectively have certainly thrown up unusual scenarios.
For example, while the Advaita Teertha survey has said that the BJP would win 11 seats. It also suggests that the Aam Aadmi Party, which has barely made a mark in Goa, could win 14 out of 40 seats and emerge as the single largest party.
The Congress party, the survey says, will win seven seats. The founder of Advaita Teertha Sankalp Chandelkar says, that the survey was conducted between April to July 2016, across all 40 legislative Assembly constituencies, in course of which 80,000 respondents were contacted.
The survey also said, that there was a leadership crisis in Goa and that Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar is the popular candidate for the Chief Minister's position.
Parrikar has already been a chief minister of the state on three occasions in the past before his elevation to the Union cabinet.
But Chandelkar himself claims, that he was shocked by the findings of his survey.
"As a Goan, even I am shocked with the findings of the survey. But we have to respect what voter says," he says.
With both the poll surveys predicting a shoddy performance for the Congress in the 2017 polls, the party's spokespersons have questioned the findings.
"This is a season for surveys. Still more surveys will come. We know our performance and it will be evident in the years to come," Congress spokesperson Sunil Kawthankar said.