The biggest ask in the run up to the next assembly session of 15 sittings, is will it be worth it? The manner in which this government is preparing its floor strategy leads one to believe that the effort has been completely directed at ensuring that the examination papers are set in such a manner that it doesn’t have to answer anything beyond the easy set of questions.
Of course we hope that the neutrality of the Speakers office ensures that for once the opposition gets a level playing field. But the worry warts indicate that the issue is far graver than that.
There is genuine apprehension that issues on which the government has been hedging and avoiding answers will not be allowed to play out. And that will not only be a waste of the session on which tax payers money is being spent but people will continue to be in the dark on these issues of immediate importance and concern.
Let’s cut to the chase and ask this. Will there be genuine answers on why Goa’s dream of getting a Special Status for the state has been shattered by the government? Will we know why grants to all schools, under the new Medium of Instruction policy have not been given? Will we know who will be finally accountable for the court strictures against several hotels, clubs and shacks for violating Coastal Regulation Zones. Will a single official involved in passing these projects ever be pulled up? Will we be told why the government has not de-notified the Regional Plan of 2021 and sent the draft regional plan to the villages, as was envisaged? Will the government come clean on why it has sold the bogey of moving the casinos out of the river Mandovi when it knows that it has made no preparations at the Chapora river, Aguada bay or the Zuari for the Casino vessels to move.
At the same time it has no response the charge that the Parsekar government has gone against the Parrikar government’s promise to shift the casinos out of Goa’s waters and not just out of the Mandovi river? Will we know why the government is bending over backwards to facilitate the Golf course and villa project of Leading Hotels under the garb of tourism when in reality it is a mega real estate project built on lands surreptitiously grabbed from the people of Tiracol? And will we know whether its spin of getting investments worth Rs 25000 crores and adding 50000 jobs in the next five years can really be achievable without a deliverable power and land policy?
Each of these issues, even if discussed cursorily will need at least a full day of assembly time. We fear that, if at all, a couple of them may be discussed for less than an hour and glossed over. But there’s another irony here. Even on issues on which the government has given concrete assurances, it has gone back on them. This very government has passed a resolution in favour of Special Status for Goa, moving casinos out of Goa’s waters and de-notifying the Regional Plan. And we all know where these promises lie.
When a government holds assembly promises in utter contempt, is there any sanctity in this temple of democracy? The only way in which those guilty of tarnishing the sanctity of this temple of democracy can be punished is for the people to vote them out. This government will head that way if it doesn’t course correct.
