Kamikaze governance & the brinkmanship of people’s mandate

Suddenly Goa resembles a kindergarten school full of half weary sleepy kids (elected representatives) who have no clue on how to lead the State or who is the teacher around. It resembles an infants’ nursery of over ten lakh voters who go about babbling their anger, hunger and excitement but have no say in how and where their State is heading. It took one man to change the polity of Goa, ever since he arrived in 1994. It will take that one man to change the way Goa shall ever perceive democracy. Politics is not democratic anymore. It is a cross between autocracy and oligarchy – one man holding governance to ransom and a ruling bunch of elitists hiding behind his individualistic way to push their own agenda.

As Goa’s illustrious bunch of ministers and ruling BJP’s core committee members trickled out of Candolim based Dr Dukle Hospital & Research Centre and conveyed to Goa that they had gone to extend festive greetings to the ailing Chief Minister (who had not made a formal public appearance since the past 100 hrs), it was a virtual slap across the face of every Goan who patiently goes out to vote every election and believes in the sanctity of democracy. Imagine the extent to which politicians fool Goa every day, every moment. The PWD Minister has been struggling to pay off outstanding dues of his government and managed to scrape through with a meagre 45% because the Finance Minister is indisposed. TCP Minister is relishing his role of turning every coconut palm into a skyscraper. Power and Urban Development Ministers are missing in action. And Goa’s Cabinet tells that the matter of concern is to extend a festive greeting.

Politics in Goa is heading to suicidal levels. An ailing Chief Minister handling 26+ portfolios, including the drained finance and insecure home ministries. Two key ministers, including that of Law & Judiciary and Power missing, but with no replacements over months. No money, many announcements later one wonders if governance is heading anywhere in Goa. The passing of controversial legislations meanwhile likens Goa to the Centre. Just as Rafale and other deals have been enabled by a more than eager BJP at the Centre, a similar exercise is being executed by BJP and its alliance partners in Goa. While governance is at zilch, the poster boys that this government inducted and promoted have outshone their older counterparts in corruption and nepotism.

Over the past half a year, we have seen a political stalwart behave like a spoilt brat refusing to leave his favourite toy, a political coalition behaving as a bunch of sheep content in grazing its ground and pretending that the world revolved around them. The political party has been reduced to a brass brand party that dusts off its uniforms for a public performance and blows its trumpets but the music dies every time the performance gets over. BJP cannot replace its CM because of the CM knows-it-best. The coalition sits smugly because as long as their portfolios are assured and intact, Goa’s leadership isn’t an issue. The coalition partners are at war – one assured of its special place and the other wanting to be treated at par. The later also pretty media savvy and waging a covert war of misinformation. In all this Goa does not know its political landscape. 

The obvious question then is – did we elect representatives to give a transparent and people-centric government or was it a mandate to hijack democracy by selfish and ambitious individuals to create a cartel of self-interests? For the present, the State seems to be hurtling down the dark precipice of administrative breakdown and economic bankruptcy.