TEAM HERALD
PANJIM: When Prime Minister Narendra Modi told Manohar Parrikar jaldi nirnaye le lijiye, the former chief minister had to take two nirnayes (decisions). One, when to move to Delhi (he wasn’t given a choice really) and two, who his successor would be.
Parrikar chose Speaker Rajendra Arlekar and found that the RSS troika Satish Dhond, Sanjiv Desai and Datta Kholkar that has been taking decisions or implementing those of the RSS top brass, were in agreement. A happy, Arkelar began accepting congratulatory messages with an embarrassed grin, saying he was “ready to take up any responsibility”. This was on November 5. From November 6 onwards, the tide turned. The ostensible reason was that Arlekar was defending a disproportionate assets case which could become embarrassing to the government. This is when Satish Dhond, the man who had the key to many levers of the Parrikar government backed Laxmikant Parsekar and played a key role in getting the support of a majority of MLAs. Dhond and Arlekar, though a part of the Sang Parivar, haven’t really got along, which is understandable because Arlekar is very much his own man and was one of the very few trusted by Parrikar.
All of Friday November 7, the tussle between Parrikar and Dhond continued, even as the challenge from Francis D’Souza grew stronger. Without the involvement of Satish Dhond, who has a vice like grip over the party and the organization, the power play of getting MLAs to support Parsekar wouldn’t have played out. The RSS firm of Dhond and Co did get a jolt when they realised that the support base of Francis D’Souza was growing to almost 10 MLAs with the support of more coming. D’Souza did admit that the numbers were stacked up against him. But the numbers were close.
However, the outgoing Chief Minister Parrikar stood his ground. He was clear that his choice was Arlekar and he reiterated this to central observer Mr Yeddyurappa and Rajiv Pratap Rudy, who he is close to. It is this deadlock which delayed the announcement of the new CM at noon on Saturday. Calls were made back and forth with Mr Parrikar asking the obvious question, “Couldn’t he even have his own choice of CM after giving BJP this mandate”.
He realized much to his dismay that he apparently couldn’t. While one saw a sulking Francis D’Souza, it was Parrikar who left Goa with a greater hurt. Beneath those public smiles was the sorrow of not being able to pick his own man. In perhaps his last phone conversation before his flight took off, he responded to Herald’s question of whether Parsekar, was his choice by saying “No comments”.
