Tolentino A. Colaço
Elections to the Goa Legislative Assembly are round the corner. Our politicians and prospective candidates will now be very busy trying to woo the voters by hook or by crook. They will now develop a sudden spurt of affection towards their voters. They will try to be more commoners than elites, trying to befriend whomsoever they bump into extending their hand for a warm shake hand whether they know the person or not. Suddenly they will be interested in our problems, and try to find solutions and solicit your cell numbers which they will use, not for your benefit but for their own selfish benefit, to send you a message a day before the elections begging to vote for them.
Immediately after the elections they will change their colour like the chameleons do depending on the seasons. Before the elections they will stoop low and go to any extent to get themselves elected defying all norms of good conduct, honesty, sincerity, ethics and morality.
The so-called leaders and prospective candidates will kick-start corner meetings highlighting their achievements most of which may not even be worth mentioning, trading charges and mudslinging. They will come with a fresh list of promises conveniently forgetting the ones made five years ago. Suddenly they become intelligent and get brain waves and achieve expertise on any subject under the sky, some of them without even completing their secondary education. Perhaps, if there were examinations for parliamentarians there would be no parliamentarians. They quite forget that they can fool some people at some time but not all the people at all the time. Our politicians ought to realise that today everybody is educated and their sweet coated enticing speeches, promising the moon and the sky are taken with a pinch of salt.
The average Indian voter is a shrewd and intelligent voter and cannot be taken for granted. This feature of the Indian voter was reminiscent in almost all the elections both at the national level and also at the state level. Goa is not an exception to this.
Back home, in the 2012 elections, Goans taught a fitting lesson to the Congress, sending a loud and clear message that family raj, corruption and ‘dadagiri raj’ will not be tolerated and voted the BJP to power. But the BJP has betrayed the common man in particular and Goans in general with its sinister policies and dirty plans and decisions against the interest of Goans. The BJP has no respect for the common man and only interested in the industrial class and amassing ill gotten wealth.
Goa has been destroyed ruthlessly by successive governments. It began with the MGP, followed by the Congress and now the BJP, making hay while the sun is shining with no voice from the toothless opposition congress. Instead of working for the interests of Goans, both the Congress and the BJP have been working tirelessly for their selfish ends by passing ordinances and enacting legislations to the common detriment of Goans oblivious of the serious consequences.
