the propensity to commit one political blunder after another, with no discussion, discourse or corrective measure by the ruling BJP, is making the 2017 mountain all the more difficult to climb. Even pragmatic sections within the BJP admit that it is coming to a stage where its chances in 2017 will depend entirely on what the fragmented opposition does not do, rather than what the BJP does.
With blunders upon blunders, there is very little left for the BJP to do. When a Chief Minister, during election year, declares that people exercising their democratic right to protest against the sudden, unannounced takeover of lands marked for other purposes for a Defence Expo, will face FIRs, it shows that that more than the government, it us the party which has become directionless. A Chief Minister who can issue these threats is either supremely confident that he still has the mandate to carry the next elections on the strength of the work done, or is supremely naïve to ground realities.
Even a person with rudimentary passing knowledge of Goa’s political realities will discount the former. But it is difficult to fathom how a veteran Goa politician that Mr Parsekar is, can himself or due to his ministers, go so wrong on issues.
The handling of the decision to declassify the coconut from the list of trees was a bigger blunder than the decision itself. The announcement of the drafting of a Coconut Tree Protection Act, after taking a decision which would pave the way for the destruction of coconuts is a very poor fait accompli. It’s an admission that the coconut needs to be protected. In the history of Goan civilisation, there has been no need to protect the coconut tree because it had peoples protection, with the state siding with the people. Now the state has removed the protection and then announced that it is bringing another legislation to protect the tree.
The Parsekar government, if it has any political sense, should withdraw the legislation, announce that it needs to study the issue further, form a House committee to study the issue and let it lie in old storage, where it can give company to other issues of far more vital importance like the Medium of Instruction bill and a fully functional Regional Plan.
The government’s handling of the coconut crisis is childish at best and disastrous at worst. This is a sign of absolute confusion and anarchy in decision making. We may well ask who is in charge? The short answer to this is, everybody thinks he is. For instance the Agriculture minister suddenly announced that India’s National bird, the Peacock and Goa’s state animal the Gaur were on the watch list of ‘animals” which would be declared “vermin’ (nuisance animals), which would allow their culling when they did damage to agricultural crops. The sharp outrage which followed led to the Chief Minister and the Environment Minister hastily distancing themselves from the Agriculture Minister’s remarks. Notwithstanding this the story went absolutely viral with publications, and online news sites picking up the story, first highlighted by Herald, which led to some alarming comments about India and Goa. The ramifications of negative publicity, because of sheer stupidity will be felt closer to the elections.
Both the party and the Government need to step back and rethink its strategy on several of the recent issues which have erupted, or be prepared to perish.
