GOA’S BEST CM By Valmiki Faleiro Goa’s first CM, DB Bandodkar (DBB), loved game in his youth. As CM, he loved games, sporty and political. The passion for sports, at his age, regularly saw him play table tennis at Gaspar Dias. During such a game, early night of August 12, 1973, DBB collapsed. He was rushed to the nearby GMC hospital, but doctors could do little. Goa’s best CM was history. History will judge the Bahujan Samaj idol that way. Not on merit, by default. Four others, brilliant minds, abdicated their claim to the title. DBB was anything but brilliant. He depended on Maharashtra ‘deputationists.’ Practicality helped. If an officer said a task was not "within the law," he’d bark: "Do it. I make the law, I’ll change it." When a particularly difficult IAS officer disobeyed his illegal order, the officer’s Altinho house was soundly stoned that night. Police looked the other way. DBB did not achieve much progress -- save in primary education (in Marathi medium, where "Bai’s" of his caste were shoved into government payrolls), some roads and bridges, industrial estates, and dams like Selaulim. His cherished dam project at Ganjem-Usgao remained only a dream. He brought India’s then industry greats, the Tatas (Taj hotels) and the Birlas (Zuari Agro) to Goa. In democracy, where elections mean money, a corruption-free polity is mere utopia. But during DBB’s tenure, corruption was not visible, nor as widespread, top to bottom. Personally, he was not communal. Hardly an orator, but carried the crowds. He had charisma, which made him the undisputed leader of Goa’s masses. For you and me, Goa’s best CM yet. Four others could be contenders: Dr. Jack de Sequeira, Dr. Wilfred D’Souza, Manohar Parrikar and Eduardo Faleiro. Minds that easily grasped complex issues, capable of quick decisions. But the first three had a common undoing: personal arrogance. Arrogance, perhaps, that stems from an intelligent, impatient mind that can’t suffer fools. Parrikar tells the story of a man who came with a problem. He didn’t have to hear the man’s long story, immediately sensed the problem, and issued spot orders. Problem solved. But the man insisted the CM was arrogant. When accosted, he explained that Parrikar had cut him short! Dr. Sequeira’s arrogance twice deprived him the CMship, as we saw last Sunday. Dr. Willy’s sudden surges of arrogance cost him the chair, as it did with Parrikar. Eduardo Faleiro was minister in the Rajiv Gandhi government when Goa burned over Konkani, in Dec-1986. Rajiv asked him to move to Goa, as CM. Faleiro was astute: he declined. Like the three, he too was a brilliant mind, always a gold medalist at studies in Goa, Dharwar and Portugal. The greatest misfortune to befall Goa came, ironically, in the person of her most suave CM, Pratapsing Rauji Rane Sardessai -- five-time, longest serving, CM. When DBB brought Rane into politics in 1972, he had confided in a friend, "Ami ek baro bhurgo adl’la: Americak management shikun aila." Rane was made Law/Revenue minister. Few months later, DBB told the friend, "Chintil’lem tashem nhui, porak bholl na." The ‘por’ was born under a ‘Rajyog.’ When, after 17 years of MGP rule, Congress won the 1980 polls, the twin architects of the victory, Dr. Willy and Babu Naik, couldn’t agree on who between them will be CM. Both saw Rane as pliable, and accepted him as a compromise. Early on, Rane’s famed indecisiveness was dramatized in a ‘Times of India’ report. Chinu Panchal wrote to the effect, "Rane’s problems start early morning, when he must decide between tea and coffee." His in-laws, the Ghorpades, rushed a smart IAS officer, Gopal, as PS. Gopal fine-tuned Rane’s chronic indecision into a fine art. He ducked Assembly questions... as the opposition, largely from the Treasury benches, confounded with rapidfire supplementaries! To all who raised grievances -- medical students, school teachers, ramponkars, trawler owners, labour unions, police, m’cycle- taxi pilots, govt. employees ... the list of piled up indecision was long! -- Rane devised a stock reply: "Where were you these 17 years? Why agitate now?" As MGP minister, responding to Dr. Sequeira’s impassioned plea for quality job creation to curb Goa’s brain drain, he had blithely said, "Who goes abroad? Only cooks and butlers." Funds were rather easy, with Rane’s parent party in power in Delhi. With his kind of tenure, a Sequeira, Parrikar, Eduardo or Willy would have taken Goa miles ahead. But in fairness, Rane was not always free to decide, even if he could. Often, he stood between the devil and the sea, balancing. And forever warding off threats to his chair. To the rest in the Goa CM’s gallery, I shall be charitable and close my mouth. (ENDS) The Valmiki Faleiro weekly column at: http://www.goanet.org/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=330 ============================================================================== The above article appeared in the March 18, 2007 edition of the Herald, Goa
