Westernised, liberal, fun-loving Goa is slowly being swayed by the BJP's carefully cultivated image of a crusading do-gooder party in the State. Thanks to a measure of the party's political astuteness, its investments are likely to pay dividends sooner than expected.

Dr Wilfred D'Souza, whose splinter Goa Rajiv Congress was called to form the government on Wednesday, is all set to woo at least two of the four BJP MLAs into the Cabinet. ``The people of Goa are not communal-minded at all. We have only got together to give Goans a good government,'' D'Souza said by way of an explanation for toppling the Pratapsinh Rane government.

Very much like on the national stage, the Hindutva party in Goa too shed its status of a political untouchable a while ago. Over the past few years, the recently deposed chief minister Rane himself had activelywooed the saffron outfit by appointing BJP men to Goa's self-government bodies. Even before the recent split, Congressmen were sore about Rane's functioning, particularly regarding the allotment of funds to projects in the constituencies of BJP MLAs while they themselves had to disappoint their voters.

So it was not surprising when some of the disgruntled MLAs split from Rane's Congress to form a government with the BJP as a coalition partner. ``Rane was always hobnobbing with the BJP. In his constituency, the Congress candidate for the Lok Sabha polls barely managed to win by a hundred votes, but my candidate defeated the BJP man by an impressive margin,'' says Dayanand Narvekar, a minister in the D'Souza team, formerly in the Rane Cabinet. He, however, justifies his own teaming up with the BJP on the ground that it was prompted by the need to remove Rane from office. ``The high command did not heed to our demands to change the leadership in the state,'' Narvekar says.

On the other hand, D'Souza hadreportedly established a working relationship with the BJP even while he was deputy chief minister under Rane. D'Souza, who was denied the party leadership despite leading the Congress to victory in the 1994 Assembly elections, had been waiting for the right moment to strike back.

Even as the dissident Congress leaders turn out to be the perfect Trojan horses for the BJP to ride to power in the forthcoming polls, Goa's regional parties are going a step further.

The Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP), which dominated the political scene since Goa's liberation in 1961 with an avowed objective to merge the tiny state with Maharashtra, has an electoral alliance with the BJP. With few party workers to mobilise voters, the MGP is fast losing its hold on the pro-Marathi Hindu voter, who is gradually moving towards the BJP. According to political observers in the State, it is only a matter of time before both the parties go in for a merger.

Already both the MGP and BJP are closely co-ordinating with eachother. During the Monsoon Session of the Assembly, leaders of both outfits announced plans to work in tandem to dislodge the Rane government. And when the BJP top brass dithered on whether to advise the Governor to dismiss the Rane government, it was former Union law minister and MGP leader Ramakant Khalap who reportedly telephoned Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee in Colombo, where he was attending the SAARC summit, to do the needful.

For the moment, MGP leaders emphasise their identity at least for the record. ``I have my own ideology and identity and they (the BJP) have theirs. We have only formed an electoral alliance,'' says Prof. Surendra Sirsat, MGP MLA and minister in D'Souza's Cabinet.

Goa's other regional party, the United Goans Democratic Party led by the colourful Churchill Alemao are political opportunists, who nearly jumped on to the BJP bandwagon before its two legislators merged with Rane's Congress on last Monday. ``If he had won the elections, Alemao could have strengthened the handsof Vajpayee,'' a former Alemao confidant had told The Indian Express.

With such sentiment among Goan political circles, it was no surprise that the BJP led in 17 of the 40 Assembly segments during the last Lok Sabha elections.

The party is also being helped by conservative attitudes which are rapidly gaining ground among Goa's vocal middle class which is experiencing unprecedented prosperity. ``People wouldn't mind the BJP it they can control alcoholism and drugs in the State,'' says an activist who held demonstrations against the proposal to turn part of Goa into a free port.

The BJP's concept of swadeshi is also catching the fancy of a section of the local population apprehensive about losing their livelihood and cultural identity to tourism. This was evident in the last Lok Sabha election, when the BJP candidates in both North and South Goa constituencies emerged second. In the first, former chief minister Ravi Naik defeated his BJP rival by just 140 votes. In South Goa, the then UGDP strongmanChurchill Alemao was reduced to third place.