Three years in office is good time to assess the performance of any government. The 2012 ‘parivartan’ came on the promise of making this tiny State a land flowing with milk and honey if one goes by the BJP’s 2012 election manifesto.
The year 2011 saw the civil society rising upto seek accountability from those who govern them. The national accountability movement momentum was harvested by BJP in Goa promising a Lokayukta in 100 days.
Google ‘BJP manifesto 2012’ and you will get illegal mining as a strategic plank for the Goa elections. It caught the imagination of the people. The then leader of opposition who headed the public accounts committee (The PAC report looks similar to the one prepared by justice Shah) told us at the manifesto release function that all illegal mining cases would be referred to the Lokayukta and that all those facing allegations of illegal mining right from the chief minister’s office down to the bureaucracy would be tried by the ombudsman. He declared “all illegal mining cases will go to the Lokayukta. Government documentation available will be enough to prosecute them. If Shah commission put the mining loot to the tune of Rupees thirty five thousand crore, the BJP at the time of manifesto release alleged illegal mining scam to be Rupees twenty five thousands crore. But where is the Lokayukta? Instead of taking any action, the government rewarded them with mining leases on the eve of the mining ordinance which mandates leases by auction route.
The parivartan came on various promises. Promise to scrap the proposed regional plan and bring a plan based on public participation. After three years, the regional plan is where it was and it is now used to paint the country side yellow. Another major plank was ‘zero tolerance to corruption’ which motivated the young and the Church in particular to rally around with a hope that with the Lokayukta and Information Commission in place, the State would be better governed. By any standard, today corruption in administration has reached an all time high. If one requires a measuring rod to gauge the level of corruption, ‘mutations’ in land records could be said to be a barometer of corruption in the Goa’s State administration. The promise to remove casinos from the Mandovi was another area the civil society in particular fell for until they were told that driving out the casinos would send a wrong signal to investors. A ruling MLA today is on the forefront of attacking his own government for promotion of drugs and selling sex and sleeze in the name of tourism. The garbage problem continues to be where it was three years back. Going by the performance it is now clear the ‘parivartan regime’ is almost a mirror image of the previous regime. Earlier the discourse would be around bad governance, corruption et al. Today we discuss ‘ghar wapsi’, love jihad’ and ‘pink revolution’ — all with religious connotations aiming at polarizing the society.
The only area the government could be given credit is fast tracking of the MOPA airport despite it not having a pride of place in the manifesto. A six lane bridge on Zuari along with 10 other bridges were assured, but strangely the one not promised, the third bridge across Mandovi has started taking shape, as the work on district Hospital at Margao comes to a standstill for lack of funds. The government cannot boast of a single legislation, it pioneered in the interest of Goa and Goans. But to give credit where it is due — the policy on Medium of Instruction could be said to be pragmatic.
The previous government had to deal with an effective opposition leader and opposition party which led attack on the government both inside and outside the House on any issue. The government has now the luxury of functioning without any opposition. On any major issue, the Opposition has nothing to say, leave alone organizing the people or providing a shoulder to the citizens groups. Even shortage of beef is not an issue for discussion though it is a major food component of Christians and Muslims. The civil society movement, village groups and NGO’s which acted with alacrity one time on issues dear to the hearts of Goans have turned silent as the government keeps the citizens in good humour through doles and schemes.
In 2012, it was thought, holding the government accountable is an idea whose time had come. Goa had made information a right much before the Right to Information Act (RTI) was introduced by the then UPA government. The Information commission and the Lokayukta have been intentionally derailed. How else one can justify the three years without the accountability mechanisms? In fact, we are actually celebrating the three years of non-transparent and unaccountable governance.
Advertising, appointing and cancelling the appointments and re-advertising is the strategy adopted to make the Information Commission non-functional. We could not get a suitable High Court Judge to be a Lokayukta but some wise men advised the government to upgrade the institution to a retired Supreme Court judge (no bread, eat cake syndrome). Today we are not getting a retired Supreme Court judge! If the Zilla Panchayat elections could be held by amending the law through ordinance, why the Lokayukta law not amended through the ordinance route to make it workable?
(The writer is practicing advocate, senior faculty in law and a political analyst)
