Earlier, there was a reference to the following article on this discussion
group:
http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/04/a-conversation-with-goa-chief-mini
ster-manohar-parrikar/

In it, the interviewer Sambuddha Mitra Mustafi, said the following in the
introduction: “The B.J.P.’s de-facto prime ministerial candidate Narendra
Modi is controversial and unacceptable to many of India’s regional parties,
whose support will be crucial to the B.J.P. in forming the next government.
Even within the B.J.P. several leaders have been harboring the ambition to
replace Mr. Modi as the party’s prime ministerial candidate. Among them is
Manohar Parrikar, the B.J.P. chief minister of the coastal state of Goa. 
Mr. Parrikar is an affable face of the Hindu right and leader of India’s
most prosperous state by per capita income, which is also home to an
influential Catholic minority and their distinct history.”

This is quite a generous praise of our very own Manohar-bab.  The
interviewer has followed it up with an article in The Economic Times, which
is at:
http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2013-09-10/news/41937955_1_goa-
cm-manohar-parrikar-bjp-care

In this article, the praise is even more profuse.  Let me give some
extensive quotes from the article:

QUOTE

As it dawns on the media that a Modi-less BJP-led government is an eminently
possible outcome of the 2014 elections, naturally the focus will shift to a
suitable BJP replacement. In Manohar Parrikar, the party may have the ace of
spades: but have they even noticed it?

Parrikar's great asset is that he broadens the BJP's voter range. Writer
Shobha De, by no means a natural votary of the Hindu right, urged the BJP to
nominate Parrikar as their prime ministerial candidate. "It will find
countless takers across India," she tweeted, "He's 57. Global. Smart."

Why should the BJP care for De's opinion? Because democratic politics is the
art of persuasion, not of anger and revisionism, as most Modi fans think it
is. It's also maths: every persuaded swing voter counts for two votes
(Congress loses one, BJP gains one). That the proud RSS man Parrikar appeals
to India's biggest vote bank — liberal Hindus — also makes him a potential
successor to AB Vajpayee's legacy (though Parrikar demurs at the
comparison). Since Vajpayee in 1999, the BJP has struggled to get support
from these crucial voters, who also make up a large section of the
intelligentsia.
..............
His biggest achievement has been rescuing Goa's economy from a potentially
crippling crisis: the Supreme Court's mining ban last year has hit a quarter
of the state's revenues and population.
..................
That BJP cadres worship the polariser Modi over the persuader Parrikar,
shows how the Hindu nationalists are still struggling to evolve as a 21st
century conservative party.
...........
If the medieval ruler of Hindu hearts is replaced by a modern leader of
Indian conservatives to form a government in 2014, that can only be good for
the evolution of the BJP and the conservative movement in India. It will
also be in the national interest.

UNQUOTE

The tweet by Shobha De is VERY interesting.  So, in our very own chief
minister destined for higher things?

But then that will depend on how much of the assessment made by Sambuddha is
correct?  Going by various statements of various political and economic
analysts in Goa, and what some on this discussion group have written, it
would seem to me that the assessment is not fully to the mark!

I also read somewhere that Sambuddha has made Goa his home!  And in New York
Times article, he is said to be a media entrepreneur and freelance
journalist!!  

There are some people on this discussion group who are in a similar
profession like Sambuddha. Saying so I am thinking in particular of Fredrick
Noronha and Mayabhushan Nagvenkar.  Perhaps they can enlighten us more about
Sambuddha and his source of information.




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