He didn’t quite mean to say it this way. And perhaps not so soon. But in one stroke Luizinho Faleiro has probably wished away a prospective Congress government’s most potential revenue resource – Casino money.
His near or perhaps full apology on behalf of his party, for allowing casinos to dock on the Mandovi is perhaps the most courageous comment made by any political leader in the recent past. While a bit of leeway must be given for the fact that those in opposition have spoken against casinos, the most well known of them being Manohar Parrikar whose famous last words as leader of the opposition were “We will storm the casinos if need be if they are not taken out”, Luizinho Faleiro’s apology for the party has to be welcomed.
But strangely for the GPCC president- and he is getting used to this by now- the party doesn’t share his sense of remorse, or at least not showing it. After his grand remark, with another icing in the form of a comment, that the casinos should move out of Goa’s waters and not just the Mandovi; there has been typical radio silence by messers Pratapsingh Rane (who is a tower of silence) and Mr Ravi Naik, the Home Minister who dipped his pen into a honey pot of riches and signed away casino licences like they were going out of fashion. And then lest we forget, Mr Francisco Sardinha who played the role of the guard of the lighthouse who as Chief Minister raised his hand to pave the way to steer casino boats. He is not sorry. And nor are many ministers of the former Congress government, some of whom were seen more on casino boats and less in office.
The bureaucracy during the Congress regime too had a casino fixation. Don’t we remember a former Commissioner of the CCP, who had made casinos look like an extension of Panjim’s civic body taking a huge gamble with the feelings and sensibilities of ordinary folk who wanted the menace of casinos out of their lives?
Mr Luizinho Faleiro, we tell you this. No Sir, you may be sorry but do not speak for your party. Your party is not and why should they be?
If the Congress indeed wants to turn this around and make its anti-casino movement seem genuine enough to touch the emotional chords of people before the 2017 elections, all it needs to do is get Pratapsingh Rane, Ravi Naik, Digambar Kamat and other worthies in the erstwhile Congress cabinet to come together on one platform to apologise to the people of Goa for choosing revenue and a false notion of tourism, to welcome the casino business which has severely torn the social fabric of Goa.
At the same time, no amount of apologies will get the people of Goa to trust the BJP for playing with the trust of the people of Goa, by pretending to crusade for the removal of casinos and privately cutting deals with them and taking their donations for elections.
The Congress will be given one more chance if it issues a joint apology and declares that it will not take a single rupee from casino operators for their election funding.
