The Heat Is On
The special status resolution passed without a hitch in the Goa Assembly on Monday was a display of political strategy at its best. Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar moved the resolution, and no one ~ unless they had political hara-kiri in mind ~ could have dared breathe a whisper of dissent on the matter. The issue will now move to the Union Government. No matter how many years it takes to play out ~ it took 30 years for the Hyderabad-Karnatak region to get special status ~ or which government comes to power in Delhi, Parrikar has deftly lobbed the ball to the Centre’s court and silenced the pockets of murmurs that had sprung up to push the cause.
Dabolim, on the other hand, is an entirely different matter, and the political tightrope could get trickier for the chief minister as the first quarter of 2014 approaches. It couldn’t have been anything but embarrassing for Parrikar when Environment Minister Alina Saldanha stood up in the State Assembly last week to call his bluff on Matanhy’s stand on Mopa airport. Said to be under immense pressure herself from religious and other groups that orchestrate her strategy, Saldanha was compelled to break her silence and clear the air on her late husband’s views on the dual airport issue. Firm, yet deferential enough not to cause too much of a tizzy in the ruling benches, Saldanha said her husband had been totally opposed to Mopa, but in any case she wasn’t aware if he had broached the subject with the CM. Deflecting the criticism that Dabolim was being deliberately neglected, Parrikar told the house on Monday that the pre-Liberation airport would get a Rs 75 cr facelift by way of grade separators to ease the traffic and also promised to reacquire land if needed for parking.
These commitments though are unlikely to ease the momentum for Dabolim Only that’s becoming more and more of a pre-election issue. Heading the latest offensive is the rector of the Blessed Joseph Vaz Sanctuary, Sancoale, Fr Eremito Rebello. One of the many socially and politically engaged Catholic priests who had given Parrikar and the BJP in Goa a big heave up in the March 2012 election, Rebello is currently taking on the government on the Mopa airport as convenor of Goans for Dabolim Only. The priest, who was famously in the public eye for his very political speech during Matanhy Saldanha’s funeral, had also rubbed shoulders with the former tourism minister on the Meta Strips and Konkan Railway agitations.
Both the BJP and the Goa Church are learning to their discomfort of late of the hidden costs of a relationship between two ideologically disparate bodies/partners. Taken aback by the very valid criticism that it should keep itself away from partisan politics, the Goa Church this week defended its playing a “public role in society”, but denied outright that it had “actively promoted any particular political party”, or that the BJP national secretary Aarti Mehra had a private audience with the Archbishop before last year’s election, as she claimed in a press conference in Panjim recently. “The legitimate separation of Church and State cannot be taken to mean that the Church must be silent on issues touching the social and political situation of the land nor that the state may choose to ignore the voice of the Christian community in determining the values which will shape the future of the nation,” a Church handout said.
The veneer that still holds such unlikely allies as the Church and the BJP in an unspoken partnership in Goa has been wearing thin in parts and is likely to be put to the test once the Lok Sabha election is out of the way, and the chief minister goes into full throttle to unveil his own vision for Goa. For now, the biggest challenge for Parrikar is centred around the two airports issue, and the space this offers for political manoeuvrability for the likes of Micky Pacheco and company. Putting the Dabolim ball squarely in Alina Saldanha’s court, Pacheco said she should resign if the government continues to pursue the Mopa case.
