Man with a Needle The Navhind Times THE taking away of the town and country planning portfolio from Mr Atanasio Monseratte( which hurt him so much that he dashed off his resignation to the Chief Minister past midnight) came as a surprise not just to the go-getter minister but also to the members of the public. Why, it was less than three weeks ago that both the Chief Minister, Mr Manohar Parrikar and Mr Monseratte had dismissed reports of his resignation as rumours. Reiterating his support for Mr Parrikar, Mr Monserrate said at a press conference that there were absolutely no differences between him and Mr Parrikar. He went to the extent of attributing the rumours of his alleged rift with the Chief Minister as the concoction of ‘vested interests’. These statements from the Chief Minister and Mr Monserrate had come in the wake of rumours that the Congress had offered Mr Monserrate the office of the chief minister, and that he was walking out with two or three other ministers, and his friend, Mr Isidore Fernandes, whom he helped win the byelection to the Ponguinim Assembly constituency.
So the question arises: what went wrong during the less than three weeks that Mr Parrikar thought it to be an urgent enough task to strip Mr Monserrate of the town and country planning portfolio without taking him into confidence? That this divestment is not the usual kind of reshuffle is obvious also from the fact that all other ministers have retained their portfolios. It is quite true that a reshuffle is the prerogative of the Chief Minister; he can assign any minister any portfolio, according to who he considers suitable or unsuitable for a particular area of governance. What was it after all that made Mr Parrikar decide that Mr Monserrate, who had run the town and country ministry from day one of coming into his ministry, had proved unsuited to the running of it? Did any disturbing evidence speaking of Mr Monserrate’s ‘misgovernance’ in the ministry surface before him all of a sudden? Mr Parrikar’s statement that he was not satisfied with the performance of Mr Monserrate still leaves it unexplained why the bad performance was tolerated by a dynamic Chief Minister for so long. The circumstances under which it has happened do not suggest that it was a routine exercise of Chief Minister’s discretionary powers. It had all the elements of an extraordinary act. Why did the divestment come when till only yesterday both the Chief Minister and Mr Monserrate were publicly reaffirming their confidence in each other? After all, Mr Parrikar included Mr Monserrate in the ministry, and gave him the town and country planning portfolio that he demanded. Despite a lot of opposition, Mr Parrikar allowed Taleigao to be cut out from the jurisdiction of the municipal corporation of Panaji, since it was what Mr Monserrate insisted upon. There were numerous occasions when there were differences of opinion between the local leaders of the BJP and Mr Monserrate in Taleigao, which once or twice reached a boiling point, but Mr Parrikar intervened and defused the crisis, usually by persuading his partymen to make adjustments with him keeping in view the larger interest of party’s continuance in power. Then came a time when Mr Parrikar had Mr Monserrate leave his United Goans Democratic Party and join the BJP. What could be more comprehensive assurance of no trouble from Mr Monserrate than his being baptized as a Hindu holy warrior! But all the spraying of the blessed water and all the loud profession of loyalty to the cause of ensuring Goa’s rapid development with a stable government turned out to be of little significance when Mr Monserrate’s alleged courtship with some of the men in the opposition camp wouldn’t stop. What would also not stop was the Mr Monserrate’s single-minded campaign to change the rules of the game in real estate development. Adding to the proof of his determination came the creation of planning and development authorities for several towns and inclusion of villages in them. The very fact that taking away of the town and country planning ministry from Mr Monserrate came with Mr Parrikar’s decision to exclude the villages that were included in the PDAs by Mr Monserrate provides some clue to the suddenness of Mr Parrikar’s action. Probably with the decision of Mr Monserrate to turn up certain village areas for real estate development the Chief Minister’s cup of compromises was full. “Can’t take any more of it,” he seems to have told himself, and decided to pierce a needle into the Big Bubble called Monserrate. The compulsion of seeking help from Mr Monserrate to stay in power eventually proved a bitter experience to Mr Parrikar. But will it be any better with Mr Micky Pacheco?
