A moment of poise after uncertainty is all that Goa can expect. The gain of the restored United Progressive Alliance government, to be headed by Mr Pratapsinh Rane, is minimal. Its fate has been decided by a whisker, which is quite the usual state of things in Goa. Both the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party needed four out of the five seats up for the bypolls to break the deadlock of an assembly evenly balanced on both sides. The Congress won. That is, it won three seats, and the fourth was won by the Nationalist Congress Party, an ally. The UPA in Goa can now claim a dubious vindication of its overturning of the Manohar Parrikar-led National Democratic Alliance government early this year. But Goa can raise the most philosophical questions about defeat and victory. The five gentlemen who quit the Parrikar government together, to duck the anti-defection law, have had a multicoloured political career. Mr Francis Xavier ?Micky? Pacheco, for example, had been in the United Goans Democratic Party before he joined the BJP to become the Parrikar government?s sports minister and then a key figure in its fall. But he contested from Benalium this time on an NCP ticket, because he had not been given a minister?s berth by Mr Rane in the brief UPA stint before president?s rule was imposed.

Again, Mr Digambar Kamat, who won the seat for the Congress in Margao, had been Mr Parrikar?s deputy. Mr Pandurang Madkaikar, who had been of the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party before becoming a minister in the BJP-led government, won on a Congress ticket from Cumbarjua. And so on. The direction of party-hopping in Goa is evidently determined by the colour of the government in Delhi. Mr Rane may have made a triumphant comeback, but his outfit looks fragile. Already there is deep discontent among the loyalists, like Ms Nirmala Sawant, at the warm welcome, in the material form of ministerial berths, being offered to the mind-changers. It is a face-saver for the UPA, and only just that, for the time.