SUNDAY, APRIL 21, 2024
We have said this repeatedly and we will say this again. Goa’s tryst with its future has to be in the footsteps and the heartbeat of its young dynamic people walking the talk for a better future for Goa. And no democracy can ever be successful if clean educated people with articulation and zeal are rejected both by people and political managers and parties which run elections these days.
The real success of making a political system people-based and people-driven is when we give good people the strength and the backing to make them winnable. The shot cut, which is being taken now is to go on a crazy candidate hunting spree, literally waiting behind the bushes to catch any candidate not given a ticket by a rival party, whisking him or her away and getting a joining done with a shawl and flag accompanied by the party ticket, all in a matter of less than an hour.
When good people are not backed to win by political managers and parties, you don’t get any role models as winners
Let us look at the spate of candidates who are just plucked out of nowhere and made party candidate. Do they understand the party, do they understand the party ideology, do they understand the vision and goals of a party. Do they believe the narrative? Tragically these things do not matter to those who manage these processes, the political managers, and parties, who simply need to field a full team. But shouldn’t greater effort be made to build a team of good people rather than beg borrow or steal at the last moment?
When credible people are sidelined and fly-by-night operators are brought in and given tickets, it has a ripple effect not just in that constituency but in the region and even across Goa. People watch patterns, people see if icons of credibility and honesty are fielded as choices for the people or not. And remember, people, make mental notes especially in Goa when everyone is known and understood and when people are hurt, they do not forget. And they do not forgive.
Sadly, many are silent waiting to see who will come to power before making a move
Elections have sadly become all about the benefits and comfort one can get in the new government. Corporates and businessmen are silent waiting to butter the right side. So not a word is spoken or a statement made. In fact, industry spokespersons are fearing to come to television studios and speak on anything lest one sentence goes against their future.
Poor people are also silent. They are wondering if they will get funds to be self-employed, or will they have jobs, will they get opportunities for education? Little are they aware of the games being played and the deals being struck by parties in the garb of democracy.
The political ringmasters are playing with your future. Will intelligent people raise their voices or continue being silent spectators?
The political ringmasters ride their egos on their puffed arms thinking that they know best but don’t people know that so many streets of Goa, especially political streets like those of Calangute are littered with deals. Otherwise, can anyone imagine why a Joseph Sequeira who would leave the Congress and join his trio of political colleagues, Angel Fernandes and Anthony Menezes “to defeat the BJP”, wait barely a week to join the same BJP? This is not a political decision. This smacks of a deal where the main political ringmaster of Calangute, is involved.
The guilty and the greedy have taken over the political system leaving the credible and the honest behind. They are running to temples and churches to take an oath that they will not defect to other parties after they win their seats on another party ticket. Only the guilty will do this. They are basically taking insurance against sins they will surely commit in the future.
So what is the fallout of this kind of system? Corporates, businessmen, and wheeler deals win. The common man, the simple government servant, the humble clerk, the hardworking student, they all lose.
People are scared to talk and vote for the right people
That is why the right people are not “winnable”. This is why political managers choose the wrong people because wrong people have become winnable. One of the reasons is a huge gap between what people really want and what the government chooses to understand. The government reads everything we write, we read, we search. But does it read what people really want? Their hopes, their desires, their expectations. They think they are custodians of our future, but do they even know our present?
In this system, do we the people even know what we want sometimes? Because we are the real custodians of our futures. And if we do not act now to claim our present and the future, future generations will ask what we were doing when our history was being squandered.
If you keep on accepting the kind of political choices thrust upon you on the pretext of giving you a winning candidate. Remember, all of us have to hand it over to the next generation. Are you proud of how you are going to hand Goa over when your time will come?
Winners are those you create. Winners are those you support. If you have a system when political and party managers simply inform you who your choices are, with you playing no part in that choice, you will live in a parody of democracy with your future getting mocked at every single day.
