He is everybody’s PWD minister. Earlier Digambar Kamat needed him, then Manohar Parrikar thought it wise to keep him, even though he did not actually need him. Today the BJP realises that the Madcaim MGP strongman, his Priol MLA brother and his Ponda MLA partyman, will not just be fringe players making up the numbers in the 2017 elections.
From being a kingmaker, Sudin Dhavlikar wants the real deal. He wants to be king. Thus from a coalition colossus, he has become a ruling party impediment. If we see a series of political developments which are not directly interlinked, but have a pattern, if one looks closely, there is clearly a back channel working to trim, cut and stall Dhavlikar so that he doesn’t become a rallying force in 2017, who could not just swing votes, but form or help form governments. Even as new political formations are attempted at being conceived, with conception still not happening, the allure of Sudin Dhavlikar and his MGP still continues to excite. To be formed new political babies have the MGP in their gestation plans and this is why the stronger he gets, he will manage to win the power trip with the BJP.
This assumes significance in the wake of the current BJP organisation, headed by General Secretary Satish Dhond, which believes that the BJP doesn’t need a coalition crutch. It is the coalition partners who live off the BJP. While that equation will change rapidly as 2017 approaches, the internal strategy is clearly to establish the party as an independent power force which believes that it can go to the polls with no political or -importantly-social coalitions.
That was explicit in the manner in which the BJP reacted to the memorandum by Catholic MLAs in the party to the Chief Minister to open new schools run by the Diocesan Society of Goa and/or extend classes. While the Chief Minister made polite noises of looking into the issue, the real face was evident when all MLAs were summoned to the Chief Minister’s residence with Satish Dhond seated next to him. The MLAs who signed the memorandum were asked if the Church gave them the ticket or the BJP did. And for good measure they were told ” If you feel that all of you are Church MLAs you can turn back and leave. That is the door”. The fact that minority MLAs took this humiliation is another matter. But it establishes that the party feels it can polarise and keep other centres out. Sudin Dhavlikar and the MGP are thus on the isolation list.
What has happened in the past three months is that the antagonism towards the MGP, by the Ponda unit of the BJP which fought bitterly with the MGP on the two issues of Sopo tax on Ponda market vendors and the takeover of the historic Kranti Maidan, has moved to other areas. The differences are becoming more pronounced. Chief Minister Parsekar’s open condemnation of PWD minister Sudin Dhavlikar’s hand in imposing an entry tax for Goan vehicles, indicated that the chord which joined the parties has indeed snapped for all practical purposes. On Tuesday the Chief Minister reversed the decision and directed that entry tax would not be imposed for Goan vehicles. It was Parsekar’s way of saying that he is still the boss.
Meanwhile Dhavlikar has been hit by his education qualification scandal. The Aam Admi Party, does indeed have some very incriminating evidence that the minister did not pass his BSC degree in 1979. In fact there have been failed attempts in 1978 and 1979 to pass his BSc exams. Herald has learnt that the happiest at these developments are BJP insiders. A false declaration in his election affidavit about his educational qualification is a criminal offence. Delhi’s Law Minister Jitendra Singh Tomar was arrested for the very same offence. Interestingly, it is now learnt that a hotelier in Mapusa, who is very close to the BJP leaked these documents to put Dhavlikar in the dock.
Politics doesn’t just make strange fellows. It dumps family friends to banish them, when they grow from being supporters to rulers. This may not be the end of the road for Sudin. It may be the beginning of the end of the BJP being comfortable in a coalition universe. And this might give them losses and not expected gains.
