For the record, this is an election to choose new Corporators for the city’s corporation, whose job will be to work towards a better city. The challenge is however far more immense and complicated. The new council will have a responsibility and a solemn duty to repair the utmost and unmitigated damage done to the city due to a combination of factors and the greed of the ruling party. The last four years has seen the undoing of Panjim, and for this the city fathers’ may have contributed less to this damage than the big Godfather, who was the MLA of Panjim and the Chief Minister. He usurped all the powers of the city government and ran the Corporation as an extension of his Chief Ministerial office. The undermining of the institution of the Mayor and the Corporation has been the biggest contribution of the ruling BJP towards the governance of its capital.
The only change in the script was when Chief Minister Parrikar joined the Union Cabinet and left his personal assistant to man the fort, albeit through a by-election which PA Siddharth Kuncalinekar won by proxy. Since then, city governance was replaced by sheer political interference. While Mr Parrikar, due to his stature and long run as Panjim MLA could still pull it off, Kuncalienkar started punching way above his height, thinking that he was getting his punches right. Trouble started when the Panjim MLA started believing – when no one else did – that he was a worthy replacement for the big man. If one draws a parallel with the Ramayana, Kuncalienkar was expected to be Bharat, who ruled Ayodhya without sitting on Lord Rama’s throne and always keeping his elder brother’s sandle wood slippers next to his empty throne. What the Panjim MLA did instead, was attempt to sit on Mr Parrikar’s throne. From his point of view, it was brave move, a risk he thought was worth taking. Whether it indeed was or not will be determined today when the CCP results will be declared. If the BJP-backed panel pulls it off, then Kuncalienkar who positioned himself as the head of this campaign, where he picked and chose his team at the cost of rejecting those who Parrikar had handpicked as candidates, would have arrived. If he does not, and the likelihood of that is very plausible, then he may be heading for a place in the debris of political isolation. The MLA of the “smart” city will then pay for a very un-smart political risk he has taken.
Unfortunately the political symbolism and the nuances of Kuncalienkar’s attempts to crown himself Panjim’s king, and what this has done to BJP’s internal equations in the wards, has overshadowed the real crisis facing Panjim. There is an absence of a vision to plan the development of the city effectively, giving power and control to established professionals and allowing the CCP to do its job. Different organs of the government have worked in Panjim with no coordination but practiced detachment as roads have been dug multiple times by different agencies, leaving them in a permanent state of abject destruction. The treatment of garbage and the introduction of pay parking have remained as discussions with solutions blocked at the last moment due to vested interests.
But today will not change all that. In a travesty of justice, today’s results will not be referendum on whether we will have a better Panjim or not. It will be merely a weather report of the new political changes in the run up to the 2017 Assembly elections. It could well mark the re- return of a man called Babush Monseratte. It could mark the absolute decimation of the Congress in Tiswadi and it will most certainly sow the first seeds of political deal making when friends may turn foes and vice versa. As this battle gets played out, our beloved Panjim will remain only a battlefield and a parody of the glorious city, looked at with pride and envy by many nations, she once was.
