They don’t look very different except that the one who is better known is shorter and has some more layers on his midriff than the man in Goa, not exactly his counterpart, but controls the levels of power as much as he does. The portly and the powerful Amit Shah has the key to the BJP organisation, which is running the country and the government with Narendra Modi as the captain of the ship. His de-facto clone in Goa is a man called Satish Dhond, taller than Shah but with the same DNA with a shabbier dress sense. Be it a far star hotel or a village camp, Dhond is in his trademark unkempt crushed dhoti and kurta. Clothes certainly do not maketh this man. What does so is his acumen of a muscleman turned organizer, who is the epitome of what many feared Parrikar’s rule would be of upper caste Hindu power.
Today, Dhond is in the know of key transfers and postings, ensures that the schemes of the government reach the beneficiaries the RSS and the party wants and above all ensures that whatever may be the changing equations between the government and the minorities may well be, some things don’t change. The removal of Dr Ida de Noronha de Ataide as the Head of the Goa Dental College and bringing her down in the seniority list behind Dr Dinkar and the alleged downgrading of seniority of the Director of Municipal Administration, Elvis Gomes, denying him the IAS cadre, are being seen as deliberate with a communal twist to it. A BJP minority leader was vocal about it saying “There is no denying that these decisions will be resented by Catholics. This needs sensitivity”, though not linking Dhond directly to any of these actions, the leader said “He does what Parrikar cannot do and he has Parrikar’s blessings. Sometimes we feel that the Chief Minister has his blessings, he is so powerful.”
This man from Pirna in North Goa was a hardcore RSS Swayam Sevak until he was pitch-forked into the electoral politics through the BJP in the mid-nineties. At that time, the party hardly had a presence in the State. But with MP Shripad Naik as the face and Satish Dhond as the man behind the scenes, the party rose to power, though Naik and Dhond were never close and on opposite sides of the caste equation. Naik, a backward Bhandari Samaj leader and Dhond, a casteist Brahmin,
he is and has been their troubleshooter and agent provocateur, the organizer, but always in the background, never the face. The face of the party is Manohar Parrikar and the man behind the scenes – Satish Dhond.
He was very visible in the run up of the 2002 elections and also in the time that the Manohar Parrikar I government was in power.
He was the man controlling the MLAs, convincing them, putting a small word in their ear, generally keeping them in control.
However, allegedly due this hard shod ways and manners – and a little bird says an unsavoury incident – he was then shunted out of the State by Shripad Naik and sent out to Dadra and Nagar Haveli.
Insiders say that he was sent for training and to polish out his rough edges, given that he had rubbed many a BJP worker and MLAs the wrong way.
Today, he is the man furthering the agenda, be it in government departments or in the field. He is known to personally visit them and ensure that the work is done to the satisfaction of the party and according to the strategy.
After becoming State BJP president on January 17, 2010, Laxmikant Parsekar immediately brought back from Gujarat this former organizing secretary, Naik had sent Dhond out of Goa. Dhond managed to control the disgruntled among its ranks after the ticket distribution, unlike the Congress, a telling evidence of Dhond’s abilities.
Though he was kept under wraps, his backroom organizational skills were telling. But as soon as the party won, he was seen prominently on the lawns during the swearing-in ceremony. And after that, he has slowly come out of the shadows.
Even during the earlier regime, old-timers point out that when the BJP was agitating against Governor Jamir’s dismissal of the Manohar Parrikar I government, the BJP workers were at the Raj Bhavan gate, but he was at the NIO Circle directing things. There, but not there.
Like Shah, Dhond is Spartan in his ways. He used to sleep in the old BJP office and go out only for food or work. In fact, old-timers recount that he used to go religiously for tea to a restaurant that was situated opposite National Theatre. The restaurant no longer exits as the place has been bought apparently by former Ponda MLA Ravi Naik or his representatives, and has become part of the development process in the State.
But he is nothing if not a grassroots organisation man, who has a love-hate relationship even within the organisation. But no one is ahead of him in the power stakes. In 98-99, in fact he was manhandled by BJP workers outside a hotel in Dona Paula over distribution of tickets.
He knew his people and used the Student Wing of the BJP the ABVP quite effectively, with old-timers recalling that during a certain Goa University elections he was very much in the fray with ABVP workers that came on the scene after they won the panel but lost the president’s post.
Only the presence of police prevented a major clash between the two groups after the election results.
But for many he is almost invisible, lurking in the shadows. He speaks, very softly if at all and keeps his cards and his counsel very close to his chest. But when it comes to infusing key organisation wings with energy and picking the right people to do a long term job from grass root upwards; he is the man.
As the BJP seems to bend to other priorities to keep the electoral math going, Dhond will always be positioned to be the custodian of the Sang Parivar in Goa, and see that the family remains forever strong. Even Parrikar can’t change that.
