THURSDAY, APRIL 25, 2024
Joe D’Souza
We are all in one voice asserting that Assembly elections 2022 to the Goa Legislature are round the corner with the possibility of holding the election by the State Election Commission of Goa in February 2022. Although the bugle cry of the election is yet to be announced by the State Election Commissioner of Goa, the various political parties vying to form the government have gone full cry towards winning and forming the government.
The old political foes the Congress, Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party and the Nationalist Congress Party along with the recent one like the Goa Forward, Aam Aadmi and the Trinamool Congress now see Bharatiya Janata Party as the main political adversary. Thus various political combinations are seen to be at play with hectic talks of alliances being stitched together, secretly though by the leaders of these above political formations. Luizinho Faleiro, at the helm propped by the National Trinamool Congress, is trying his best to displace the Congress as the main opposition party. Interestingly, Trinamool Congress is going hammer and tongs more against the Congress now in the principal opposition, accusing that Congress is trading its MLAs to the BJP.
Whether this serious charge would stick or not would depend on Faleiro’s ability to convince the voters across Goa that the Congress leaders are in cohorts with the BJP, making money by selling MLAs? In Goa, we all know that it is the majority of the Congressmen who have labelled themselves as bhakts of BJP that are running the lackadaisical government in Goa. Robbing mandate of the voters is not new to Goa. Ever since Dayanand Bandodkar our first CM down to Churchill Alemao’s PDF to Ravi Naik’s Congress and so on, switching parties and stitching loose alliances is a very long history in Goa.
Goans never ever seem to learn from history and whether 2022 would see the trend continue is not surprising or a shocking expectation and thus Trinamool Congress and the Aam Aadmi party are counting on voters to align with them to stop this opportunistic trend of defections. Goans by and large are lazy and fatalistic in our approach. The over 450 years of Portuguese colonial rule over us have made us passive and sing Que Sera Sera and dance to the tunes played by those in power at that time. Congress won in 2017 assembly elections in Goa and Parrikar who lost decisively in 2017 was able to clobber the government primarily due to this abilities to win over MLAs from Goa Forward Party as well as from the Congress and convert his ‘lost mandate’ into a winning government for five years.
For the Congress bosses, they just licked their thumbs and held no dharnas or agitations in front of those defectors’ residences and offices. A dormant petition in front of the Speaker belonging to the ruling dispensation was a cruel joke, as this petition would be dismissed as soon as the elections are declared for in early 2022.
We as docile and passive voters would find ourselves discouraged and demoralised as we were not led to agitate before the defectors for betraying our mandate. Yes, the Congress observer and in-charge both Chidambaram as well as Gundu Rao seem not to be impressive or active scientifically. Just promising that candidates would emerge from amongst the voters is an insipid and a passive approach, as BJP’s money power makes the MLAs go round. If memory is short for us just see as to how Vijai Sardesai was going hammer and tongs against BJP and ridiculing Manohar Parrikar in 2016 and prior to the 2017 Goa Assembly elections. See also Rohan Khaunte whom the Congress backed fully as an independent from Porvorim jumped into the BJP led government in 2017. The Congress and the voters had lost their virility and vitality to the deceit to the voters then. Look at the report card of the government. We lost Mhadei water to Karnataka, the casino lobby is running River Mandovi, the Captain of Ports is building a terminal building in River Mandovi and destroying our ecosystems and environment. The biodiversity of all our rivers is diminishing and depleting. Our agriculture is at an all time low with dwindling yields of crops, cereals, vegetables and fruits. There is no value addition to our produce.
We have no scientific temper at all that what voters want is water supply, electricity sufficient to live just comfortably and doles to the growing army of unemployed youth. Murders, suicides, drugs and dances are scaling up despite the pandemic hitting us badly. I am a daily witness to thousands of youth flocking across CoP jetty for a cruise trip with drugs and drinks flowing freely below my residence depriving me sleep with alacrity. River Mandovi was a home for various rock fish, crabs, prawns, shellfish, clams, oysters. Sadly, we only find catfish and an occasional mullet on the fishing line. I have as a Scientist told and explained to our new paper reporters about the mass mortalities in River Mandovi due to eutrophication and death of fish fauna due to lack of oxygen and nutrients, due to plank-tonic destabilisation.
The basic problem of our electoral system is by and large that majority of us today trade our votes for notes. No in-house training is provided to our elected representatives about the importance of environment and ecology to our sustainable development and robust economy.
Who will bell the cat of substandard legislators who legislate and govern us? Unless we usher in science into our daily lives, we would continue to suffer the ills of haphazard parking woes, unscientific garbage disposal system, scaled up crimes and drugs, suicides, murders, social unrest, deteriorating health and growing diseases in our society.
(The writer is a retired University Professor and an environmental activist.)
