It is now the turn of BJP’s Michael Lobo to feel the seven year “itch”, though his relationship with the BJP as MLA has been for only four years. It took the Crime Branch seven years to file an FIR and charge sheet him in a case of forging the NOC from the Coastal Zone Management to clear the construction of his hotel in the heart of Calangute. While investigations have made out a clear cut case of forgery, which the MLA claims was not his doing and blames CRZ officials, he will need to explain in court why the CRZ officials would forge a document on their own to allow the construction of his hotel.
While there is certainly a case for Lobo stepping down as the Chairman of the North Goa Planning and Development Authority since he remaining will be a clear case of conflict of interest, the politics behind this sudden spurt and speed of investigation is equally important. Lobo is not the first, and is not alone and won’t be the last of people in power in the Zilla Parishad, panchayat and Assembly levels who hold sway over land, conversions and constructions. Any politician who becomes a catch of the investigating agencies which comprehensively prove his involvement in corruption, needs to be probed and conclusively nailed to set an example. But it is a fact that cherry picking of who to charge sheet is done not by the investigating agencies by the government in power. The BJP decided to cherry pick Digambar Kamat and Churchill Alemao in the Louis Berger case and this time has turned the screws on its own MLA Michael Lobo for two reasons. Firstly, Lobo has been vocal on several issues against the BJP government, with two specific ones being his support for tourist taxi operators and shack operators, against the tourism department.
The backdrop to this has been Lobo’s open and long standing rivalry with his party colleague and MLA from his neighbouring constituency, Tourism Minister Dilip Parulekar. This relationship got further complicated when Lobo made and received overtures both from the Congress and Regional forces. In the beginning this was allowed by he party because it helped them get information of plans in the camps of the Congress and the third front. But when the Calangute MLA decided to explore options outside the BJP with a little more seriousness, his mentor Manohar Parrikar is most likely to have ordered a strike in this manner, to force him back to his base. Earlier Parrikar did use the soft option and offer him a cabinet berth but Lobo declined stating that nothing less than the Tourism portfolio would work for him in the six months remaining before elections. This perhaps was the turning point in the relationship.
As Lobo himself confided, the BJP top brass quietly stayed out of this la affaire Lobo and has left him to fend for himself.
This will also have an impact on the rivalries in the Calangute constituency with ex-Congress MLA Agnelo Fernandes pleased at this development along with Lobo’s ally turned foe Joseph Sequeira. In this cut throat election year only one philosophy works- an enemy’s enemy is a dear friend.
