“A picture”, says American journalist and humorist Alexandra Petri, “can hide as much as it reveals”. And those interesting pictures of bravado that Goa watched, shared and wondered about for the past week showing a seriously weak and a grievously ill Chief Minister first chairing an Investment Promotion Board meeting and then his cabinet meeting seems more an exercise in desperation than one in rationality. What is more laughable is the picture of an ailing CM (always taken from one angle and one position) sometimes staring fixedly into the space in front and sometimes surrounded by weary and half convinced looking ministers. For eight months Goa patiently believed that there was a government and despite damning proof to the contrary toed government’s line that all was well with a cabinet that had four seriously ill senior ministers including the Chief Minister. So why do we need to see a sick man whose family begged for privacy shared through every WhatsApp and Facebook share? It isn’t sarcastic or farcical anymore, this is downright dangerous.
Goa has been suffering. Over 3000 posts for law enforcers (Goa Police) lies vacant as we head into another tourist season and we don’t know if there is a Home Minister. We have bills to be paid to contractors who are working for different departments, we have cheques to sign, we have daily paperwork to be done in our Finance Department – matters which requires a full-time Finance Minister’s presence (remember how the same BJP at the Centre replaced Arun Jaitley with Piyush Goyal as Finance Minister when the former was undergoing treatment?). That isn’t happening. After three months, a cabinet meeting happened but nobody briefed on behalf of the ailing CM. Behalf? That is the bane of this coalition where either naïve or desperate coalition partners and ruling BJP MLAs have been struggling not to replace the CM but at least to ensure that the show goes on in different departments (28 of them) under him. The seriously ill CM maybe does not find his Cabinet partners worthy of trust or probably finds them incompetent that he has taken the State’s governance to brinkmanship. But why should Goa care? A photograph rules us and tells us that the State is fine.
Yesterday, for the nth time, a high powered delegation went to Delhi to meet (surprise! surprise!) Bharatiya Janata Party National president Amit Shah to examine ways for the resumption of the iron ore mining in Goa. What is even weirder is that it was Shah who ‘directed’ Union Mining Minister Narendra Singh Tomar to resolve. Why weird because of two reasons (1) Didn’t Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi direct Tomar after showing concern and assuring to find a solution to the issue within the next 2-3 months on August 10th that BJP Supremo (who is a non-constitutional authority) directed the Union Mines Minister? Also weird (2) because so many Delhi junkets later (conservative estimate almost a dozen formal and informal meetings by CM, Cabinet Ministers, MPs, MLAs and even BJP core committee members) since this government came in last March, there seems to be no end to the mining crisis.
Goa’s mining dependant has been fed a larger than life persona of BJP at Centre (that ‘manages’ CBI, CVC, IB and every known government outfit in India) who will bring in an ordinance to circumvent the Supreme Court Judgment earlier this year as a precondition for restarting mining. People should know that despite their staggering majority in Lok Sabha, BJP is neither amending MMDR Act nor circumventing it with an ordinance for a simple reason. The Centre knows that under Article 141 of the Constitution of India Supreme Court of India’s Judgment on mining in Goa cannot be circumvented. Article 141 simply means that the law declared by the Supreme Court shall be binding on all courts. An ordinance is issued by the President only when one of the houses of Parliament is not in session with a validity of six months and six weeks and that constitutional amendment cannot be made through ordinance route. The chimaera called ordinance is not the right way that an ailing Goa’s Mining Minister won’t admit and the hoodwinking mining area MLAs won’t reveal. It’s just like the picture of the cabinet meet of last week – it was happening but there was no spirit or soul and not even sense of conviction in it.
