WHAT happened on Wednesday has only proved that politics in Goa will be what it is and what it was. Which is what is the most frightening thing. Where will all these politicians lead us to but in the deepest pits! And all for the sake of their individual promotion and power! What started with an emergency survival plan for the BJP government after the desertions from its camp over the weekend took the form of a sordid desperate assault on the opposition camp on Wednesday. Mr Filipe Neri Rodrigues, the independent member who was a minister in the BJP government until four days ago, was asked by the Speaker to leave the House on the charge of �disorderly behaviour� when all eyes, except the partisan BJP members�, would testify that Mr Rodrigues had been sitting quietly and had not uttered a word. Could being seated in the most civil and dignified manner and refraining from speech be considered �disorderly behaviour� by any standards, except by those foul ones of the BJP which knew it was in minority, unless they somehow got one of the opposition members out of the House?
Mr Filipe Neri was a soft target to them. They first tried to have him disqualified as a member, so that the opposition strength was reduced to 17, equal to the BJP�s, and then the Speaker could add his casting vote which speakers are allowed if there is a tie in a vote of confidence. The haste with which the Speaker conducted the disqualification case against Mr Filipe Neri filed by a BJP member could beat the speed of a summary trial. The hearing was over in one sitting an hour or so before the trial of strength on Wednesday, and the Speaker closed the case for order. But he did not announce his order, keeping the opposition camp in suspense. Now we know that the whole thing was a chimera to put the enemy off scent; that the Speaker never actually intended to disqualify Mr Neri, since that would not have stood the test in a court of law, to which the BJP might go in the event of their government�s dismissal.
That Mr Manohar Parrikar would stoop to such level as he did to somehow get through the confidence vote was very alarming indeed. For here was a man a large number of Goans had come to look upon as a model public servant, as a politician who instead of building up private businesses was building up Goa, as a Chief Minister who cut through the maze of bureaucracy to deliver results. Whom were the people going to look up to when such an epitome of integrity fell to devious devices to keep himself in power?
Could Mr Parrikar have harmed his interest or his party�s interest if he had resigned the moment he lost his majority? The answer would be an emphatic no. He would have risen higher in stature. After all, his political strategy, ever since the desertions took place, was to portray it as a battle between Rama and ten-headed Ravana. Why did he let it linger for four days, and let suspicions grow that the BJP, no less aggressively and shamelessly than the Congress, was out there on poaching expeditions against one another? The aggressive hunt by the BJP also reminded people of the harsh reality behind the �stability� of the Parrikar government. After all, it was the same criminal and corrupt elements whom he was denouncing now who had provided him the political stability he was so proud of giving to Goa. These elements could not have been angels when they were there with him and turned into demons out to swallow the Congress and Goa when they went to the Congress camp.
Anyway, for the time being, Parrikar is history. We now have a new Chief Minister in place who has to tackle the problems of the state. He has to first prove his majority in the House, of course. But getting through it will not be the end of his trouble, but the starting of it. He will have to first deal with the expressed and unexpressed aspirations of too many members on his side. It is a risky game, as several times the Congressmen themselves have proved to one another. It is easy to say the deprivation of power has chastened the Congress MLAs (many of them would like to be called as stalwarts); it is still easier to say that the aim of getting a common enemy in Parrikar will keep them from fighting among themselves. But it is very very difficult to prove both these theories true. Because the forces that were already there in the Congress, and the forces that have come newly into its camp, are very unlikely to behave like hermits and recluses. We shudder to think if the new Congress regime will be just like the old ones, which had actually disgusted the people so much they had been driven to the BJP. Mr Manohar Parrikar might be their political enemy, but they would do themselves good learning by his example. Put public interest above everything else, and people will come behind you.
KGTS' musicial show with Miss Lorna on 4/2/2005 at 3:30 pm in Kuwait.
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