When was the last time you ate fish in peace? You may not recollect. You may not trust that piscean plate for quite some time, thanks to some disgusting double talk that is happening on L’affaire Fish in Goa. And with a suspiciously quiet Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar reluctant to intervene, his two Cabinet Ministers are playing ping pong with Goan trust and patience. Shockingly, one of them is the Minister for Health and FDA who should have ensured that every fish on Goan plates was safe to eat and the other is the Agriculture Minister whose own party colleague is the Fisheries Minister and in whose own constituency the wholesale fish market, the root cause of expensive poisoned fish was stored and distributed to thousands of hapless Goans.
It’s been ten days since the formalin fish scandal broke in Goa and the State is being misled in a war of words between BJP’s Vishwajit Rane and GFP’s Vijai Sardesai. The conflicting messages are leading to a more confused, angry and disappointed people with the Goa government every day. Recently, the FDA Minister ‘apologised’ to Goans on a Facebook post saying, “I would like to apologise for my remark on ‘permissible limit’ for using the wrong terminology. As I have said earlier, I will push for a permanent ban on the import of fish and will appeal to the government for the same”. The minister, who has 357,987 people liking his Facebook page and 358,030 people following his page, crafted the fauxpology simply to say I am sorry without meaning it. His followers would spread his good words around.
The FDA Minister is responsible for the poisoning of lakhs of Goenkars daily nustem. Why isn’t he apologising for that? Why is he not coming clear on why weren’t these fishes discarded, the properties of the spurious fish traders and merchants attached and these traders and agents of death put behind bars then and there? Why doesn’t the guardian of Goa’s healthcare have the moral courage to stand up in public and apologise to the State for the permanent damage that his inaction caused to lakhs of Goans and what is the antidote that the government is providing to treat all those Goans who may have ignorantly consumed those poisoned fish? And lastly not the least, if we put an import ban on fish how does Goa offset the deficit when it arises during offseason? Who are you fooling, dear FDA Minister?
This government seems to be performing a tiatr for the people of Goa. So while one Minister talks of apologising for using a terminology (within permissible limits) that he as Department custodian should have known by heart, the other Minister cleverly trying to take our attention away from the issue is the Agriculture Minister who seems to be doing more talking than his party colleague Fishing Minister who has been reduced to the level of a rubber stamp. Sample the GFP President’s statement after first giving a clean chit to the spurious fish and then attacking the FDA, “I am not averse to so-called activists’ and @oheraldogoa stand to shift the market out of #Fatorda. Let’s get rid of the stench, an eyesore and the stigma of our connection to fish traders. Salcete MLAs identify land and let FDA run the market”. The Minister who has 6,995 people liking his Facebook page, 7,059 people following this page and has 11,000 followers on Twitter relied on his virtual army to spread the ‘good word’. Only Goa isn’t all that convinced anymore.
Why does the local MLA now realise the stench and eyesore despite being a two-term MLA from the same constituency? Why did the former SGPDA boss allow a private contractor to run a government facility for so long that it turned into an anti-Goan cartel? Why is he not asking for the arrest of the wholesale market don and dismantling the fish industry monopoly through the good offices of his own party Fisheries Minister? Isn’t the Fisheries Minister competent enough to identify a land for the wholesale market on his own and his department educated enough to run it that a service department like FDA is being called in? Are Goenkars so naive, Mr Minister?
The truth, and some concrete steps, have to be taken to bring a closure to the poisoning of lakhs of Goans and denial of livelihood to thousands of those in the fishing industry. This State is getting restless, getting angry at this betrayal.
