Today's OhHeraldo has an interesting article by Dr Joe D'Souza titled "Congress vs BJP -- who's better?". The article is, however, an unvarnished plug for Parrikar of the BJP. Dr Joe jumps to this conclusion at the very beginning when he says: " people of Goa seem to have come to terms with Parrikar's misdeeds and have accepted his appeals for forgiveness". As an afterthought at the end he says: "It is time for us Goans to introspect analyse and reason as to why Parrikar is popular inspite of all his mistakes." His argument is a bit topsy turvy.
In between he tries to have things both ways. He says that Congress was the one which began the game of setting up Corporations and BJP only followed suit. (You know, two wrongs make a right). Then he says, Congress carried forward the goof ups allegedly made by Parrikar/BJP like IFFI, DSS etc. This time the second wrong IS wrong! Again, he lists (at the end) a veritable litany of allegations (mostly exaggerated for effect) against Parrikar. And balances them out by saying (in the middle) that "people of Goa are very wise... they know [when] to give the devil his due". The one thing he clearly credit's Parrikar for is in "being a good opposition leader". (During the BJP regime he gratuitously gives OHeraldo the credit for providing meaningful opposition!) By contrast Congress under Rane were disunited or dumb (literally and figuratively). The other thing he unambiguously states is "North Goa today stands totally neglected. Everything and everyone is centred around Salcette." He questions if this is "secular". What I would like to take this opportunity to clarify is that my opposition to IFFI (in the pages of OHeraldo in 2004) was not to IFFI per se (which is Dr Joe's stand) but to Parrikar's overzealous handling of it which has landed Goa in a soup from which it is difficult to disentangle. Parrikar converted a nascent "film" event into a road building spree. Everybody knows that this is a recipe for corruption so lets not say that only Congress is corrupt. Besides, INOX GMC was built in record time at highly inflated cost. My hunch is that the extra money may have helped fund its Garuda Mall venture in Bangalore in 2005. The bottom line: The jury is still out as to which is better in Goa in both communal and corruption terms, Congress or BJP!
