Bandodkar worked behind the scenes to ensure Goa did not merge with Maharashtra: Former DyCM

Dhavalikar said Bandodkar was under pressure in the lead-up to the opinion poll

The country's only referendum, the Opinion Poll conducted in 1967, was subtly engineered by Goa's first Chief Minister Dayanand Bandodkar to ensure that Goa remains independent and does not merge with Maharashtra, according to Sudin Dhavalikar, a former deputy chief minister and an MLA of the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP), which was founded by Bandodkar himself.

Speaking on Thursday at an event in Panaji organised to mark the release of a biography of Goa's first chief minister, Dhavalikar, who has been at the helm of the party's affairs since the late 1990s, said despite showing overt support to his own political party which had demanded the newly liberated region's merger with neighbouring Maharashtra, Bandodkar had ensured that the pro-merger group lost, to ensure that Goa retained its distinct identity and held its own among other Indian states and union territories.

"...Bandodkar summoned his party workers from every village when the opinion poll was scheduled just eight days away... He told them 'do anything, but the state has to remain ours," Dhavalikar said.

"This message was sent to all states within eight days. There were no telephones, no mobiles at the time. My father told me this. When this message reached villages, many eminent people took this message to every home. And for this very reason, Goa was saved from being merged into Maharashtra. Everyone should know this. Many people give this a different colour," Dhavalikar said.

The referendum, the first and the only such event in the country, was announced in Goa in 1967, with two options offered by the Central government to the people of the newly liberated region; either to remain as an independent union territory or merge with Maharashtra.

In the opinion poll held six years after the liberation of Goa from Portuguese yoke, in January of 1967, 54.20% of the state's population voted for Goa being recognised as a separate territory, while 43.50% had voted for merging the newly liberated region into the neighbouring state of Maharashtra.

The Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party, led by Bandodkar, had backed the merger, while a rival political party, United Goans, led by late opposition leader Jack Sequeira had batted for Goa being recognised as an independent region in the Indian Union.

Dhavalikar said Bandodkar was under pressure, both from Congress politicians in Karnataka as well as Maharashtra as well as the then prime minister Indira Gandhi in the lead-up to the opinion poll.

"Nehru had not conducted the opinion poll. Indira Gandhi too allowed an election to be conducted without the opinion poll. But when in 1963, our government was formed at that time, she pressurised Bhausaheb to either conduct an opinion poll or join the Congress. He did not listen to her and opted for the opinion poll," Bandodkar said.

"(After Liberation) politicians started visiting Goa from Maharashtra and Karnataka. Everyone had one thing on their minds, to ensure that the first government in Goa had to be formed by the Congress party," Dhavalikar said, adding that Bandodkar was under immense pressure to join the Congress party at the time.