It happened in Goa, Fatorda, more precisely – this Sunday. When frantic calls to the nearest Fire Station when a transformer caught fire went unresponsive, residents called up the local Police Station and the cop on duty wanted to know where was Rosary Church! For those who aren’t from Fatorda, Rosary Church is the most iconic landmark which any Fatorda resident would know, so how does the local Police doesn’t know? Much like the ruling BJP in the state which raves, rants and hides but has no clue how much it is glued to the ground.
Sample this. Goa’s ruling BJP MLAs don’t want a permanent solution but a temporary one despite the fact that their Chief Minister and his mystery health has left the state headless, cashless and clueless over the past eight months. Yes, dear Goans, eight months since Parrikar’s on and off presence has turned the State into a political plunderers’ paradise, their party MLAs still want a temporary solution. Or pretend to – because their Party High Command in Delhi is more fascinated with someone who’s mystery connection with the radical Hindutva Sanatan Sansthan is suspect. Clearly, BJP MLAs are emerging as small chieftains of their own vote banks whose political chicanery is pushing the State and its reputation to that of a radical religious marauder’s haven. In the next couple of days when BJP’s pseudo-secular religious minority leaders sign up for a ‘temporary’ Chief Minister or something like him who has failed to explain his stand over the outfit that operates in his constituency, remember to ask them why.
But there is more to the BJP than the Chief Ministerial proposition that needs to be asked. Did the different constituencies in Goa press the Lotus button as an endorsement of BJP’s countrywide crony capitalist, anti-poor, anti-minorities, anti-women, anti-intellectual policies or was it the faith in their local leader? A leader/MLA and his party cannot be seen differently. How many Goans remember reading their BJP MLAs’ denouncing or explaining minority lynching, gruesome rapes, demonetisation, GST fiasco, rising fuel prices – engineered by their own party across India and in other States? None of them. But have you noticed their eagerness to ensure that the state remains, headless, uncommitted and hence evasive – the perfect hunting ground of loot-and-scoot politics? The series of meetings playing out over the next few days will not be about a permanent resolution for giving Goa a stable and effective leadership but about keeping the status quo going.
What a fall! What a shame! BJP was the party of hope that grew from zero to nine in less than ten years under the soft-spoken, true-blue Goenkar persona of Sripad Naik. It wasn’t an India Shining Party but an Amchem Goem one as BJP despite its Hindutva masthead grew in a secular/Bahujan/ Catholic political matrix. It took a Machiavellian Manohar to change all that into an ambitious power seeking, power grabbing and power broking party. The result speaks for itself. Today the cadre-based party seeks only temporary reprieves that suit its political gerrymandering, the romantics who laid the foundation of a broad-based Bahujan, minority and majority inclusive party have been decimated and sidelined. Something that Goa may not forget and in time, not forgive too.
Goa is a small place. Outside their pompous media appearances, the ruling majority MLAs don’t notice the smirks of disbelief and the indifference to their political commitments that is growing in Goa. BJP may have thought that they wrested the mandate away from Congress but the fact remains that it was a mandate that they snatched away from people of Goa. A Goa, that had almost voted them out. A year later, they have proved the people of Goa right by their lack of leadership and self-serving attitude in governance.
