Whether it’s a village, town, city, taluka, district, State or a country, any society has to be alert about its rights and duties if it wishes to be uplifted. Society has to be fearless enough to raise its voice against injustice, and has to be discerning to uphold goodness. However, unfortunately, it would not be wrong to say that these values hardly appear when it comes to the capital city of Panaji. That is why the residents and visitors do not seem to get out of the vicious cycle of experiencing hardships which has been dished out to them under the tag of Smart City.
On the other hand, political leaders seem to be far too engaged in taking digs at each other to notice the pain the Ponjekars are going through. Utpal Parrikar commented on the change in the administrators of Panaji with regards to the Smart City works. Reacting to Utpal Parrikar’s statements, Babush Monserrate levelled some serious allegations against Goa’s former chief minister late Manohar Parrikar, accusing him of ruining Panaji by roping in corrupt consultants. He further claimed that Ponjekars are facing the brunt of shoddy works carried out during Parrikar’s 25-year tenure as Panjim’s MLA.
In fact, a BJP minister accusing BJP’s towering leader and ‘bhai’ to karyakartas, should have wreaked havoc in the party. BJP’s loyal workers should have taken to the streets to condemn Monserrate’s accusations. However, surprisingly, neither did the Chief Minister, party’s State president or even BJP’s senior leaders utter a single word against Monserrate, let alone the workers. This silence could means that either the leaders want to suggest that they do not want to interfere in the Utpal-Babush conflict or the anti-Parrikar leaders silently agree with Babush’s statements. It is not a secret that there are two groups in BJP, where one is pro-Parrikar while the other group is against. And that is why apart from BJP’s spokespersons Giriraj Pai Vernekar and Dattaprasad Naik, nobody from the BJP really took on Babush as one would expect them to.
Does BJP no longer need the Parrikar brand? Maybe this need ceased in 2022 when BJP offered Babush candidacy from the Panaji constituency. Monserrate narrowly emerged victorious in the respective polls against the rebellious Utpal Parrikar, with only a 716 vote margin. That means the difference of votes between the two leaders was of mere 358 votes. However, in political contests, a victory even with the margin of one vote is considered as victory; and after registering the win, Babush had made a strong statement saying Parrikar’s heirship over Panaji had ended. On top of it, he had also accused BJP workers of working against him during the polls. Even then he did not face any action from his party for doing so and the possibility of that happening now is little to none. The reason for that lies in BJP’s criteria to choose candidates which has changed drastically in the last ten years.
BJP has adopted a strategy of importing MLAs from opposition parties, or from any party for that matter, to erase the existence of opposition parties. The party’s aims, goals, senior leaders’ relentless efforts to strengthen the party, building of karyakartas’ network and the image-building of the party means nothing to BJP anymore. BJP leaders are liable to answer if the late Parrikar has been reduced to a leader who should be remembered only on one day in the entire year or if he is still looked up to as BJP’s cornerstone in the State. Monserrate’s accusation of Parrikar appointing a corrupt consultant leading to corruption of crores of rupees in the Smart City works is even more severe than his first allegation. But the question that arises is that if there is corruption in the Smart City works, then why did not the Corporation of the City of Panaji, headed by Babush’s son, conduct an inquiry? As a Minister himself, why did not Monserrate not raise the issue in the Assembly?
Late Manohar Parrikar’s public image has been that of a visionary administrator whose motto was ‘zero tolerance to corruption’, which is why he would keep around eight departments to himself, from Home and Finance.
Monserrate has also challenged Utpal to contest against him in the 2027 assembly elections. In short, Monserrate has made it clear that he is a self-made leader who does not require any party. As a result of all the chaos, the matter of Smart City works has been sidelined, while the people are forced to witness the political immaturity between the so-called people’s representatives.
Truth be told, the people of Panaji are also responsible for this situation. People from all over the State come to Azad Maidan in Panaji to protest over various issues, but one would not be able to remember if the Ponjekars ever protested against shoddy Smart City works here. The Opposition parties too do not seem sensitive enough to raise their voices against this. Indeed, the inquiry into the alleged corruption must take place, as this will ascertain whether it happened during Parrikar’s times or now. But more importantly, the common people should be relieved from the hardships which they have to endure daily.
