Mauvin Godinho’s formal anointment as a BJP man was an event which was five years in the making. Speaking in 2012 just after the BJP government came to power, he said that it was a matter of time before he joined the BJP. For five years this man has made a mockery of the mandate he sought as a Congress candidate, violating every shred of morality and ethics. He attended each and every session of the Assembly as a Congress MLA, and continued to not just make statements against the Congress and bat for the BJP, but function as a BJP MLA in every sense of the term but the official one.
The people of Dabolim voted for the Congress in 2012 and in return they got a BJP MLA. Therefore Mauvin Godinho committed a double jeopardy on the people of the Dabolim and the Congress party, which remained a mute and helpless spectator to this disgusting spectacle.
The Congress however has no right to claim victimisation. They did not have the guts to take on Mauvin and sack him from the party for anti- party activities because sacking him from the party would cause the Congress strength to fall by 1 and leave them with a paltry 8 MLAs in the Goa assembly. This logic though is baffling. With 9 MLAs what did the Congress expect to achieve. And if the cost of taking action against an MLA who was functioning as a BJP MLA, was the reduction of the party’s strength in the Assembly, it would have been a zero cost. Today, even the Congress has lost the moral high ground to take on Mauvin Godinho on any issue since it chose to hang to the numerical comfort of having 9 MLAs before it ironically decided to expel Babush Monseratte from the party, reducing it strength to 8 but failed to sack Mauvin Godinho. Thus both the Congress and Godinho, like an open marriage with no morals, kept it going, the Congress wanting an additional MLA and Godinho wanting to retain his seat, because resigning from the party would force him to contest bye-elections.
Perhaps nowhere in this country has such an open political marriage been permitted or practiced and this should go down in the anals of democracy not as a single black day, on Friday December 16, but as the culmination of a very black chapter in Indian legislative politics.
Moreover, it is strange that Godinho, suddenly comes across as a champion anti-corruption crusader targeting the Congress for various scams like – in his own words- the Casino, SEZ and mining scams, when Manohar Parrikar, had filed a complaint against Godinho alleging a multi-crore power department scam which is not closed in the Apex court.
But morality has no space in politics and the strangest of political bedfellows procreate more of the same genre. One person who has been hurt the most with Mauvin joining the BJP is the party Vice president Wilfred Mesquita. He has always been out of sorts and uncomfortable with the party, especially after Parrikar’s departure. For him to say that this is a black day for the BJP, took a lot out of him. For close to three years he has remained silent. Shouldn’t the BJP introspect and ask itself if losing Dr Mesquita to get Mauvin Godinho, is good for the party. Dotor Mesquita is one of the last of the gentleman old school politicians, with political graces and finesse that is a rarity in today’s politics. Does the BJP really want to sacrifice these traits at the altar of opportunistic politics?
This is not about who will win or lose if Mauvin will contest on a BJP ticket and win. This is a much larger question of who to trust in politics. As the 2017 elections is upon us, the honesty and morality of who we vote for will be put to test.
Decisions we take will impact us for the next five years. For Goa’s sake let us vote for people who really are and are on the side of the political fence they claim to be and not carry out a farce that Mauvin Godinho did, and the Congress accepted.
