While Prime Minister Narendra Modi was yet to address the people of Goa at his rally in Margao, the State was startled to receive an audio clip of an alleged conversation between Art and Culture Minister Govind Gaude and the Director of Department of Tribal Welfare, Dashrath Redkar. In the alleged conversation, the minister is heard hurling abuses at Chief Minister Pramod Sawant, Speaker of Goa Legislative Assembly Ramesh Tawadkar and the Director too. Besides the filthy language used against the three, in the audio clip, Minister Gaude is heard telling the Director that he would go to Ramesh Tawadkar’s office, who is also the Chairperson of SC & ST Commission, and “slash him”.
O Heraldo has learnt that the audio is from a phone conversation that happened on December 20, 2023, on the eve of a programme organised by the Department of Tribal Welfare. Gaude, who is also the MLA of Priol constituency, was agitated as he was “bypassed” and not invited to the function in Priol, which was to be graced by the Chief Minister and the Goa Assembly Speaker. On the eve of the function Gaude, as per the audio clip, called Dashrath Redkar and unleashed a mouthful asking him to immediately cancel the programme since he (Gaude) and the local sarpanch were not invited. The Minister also told Redkar not to release any financial assistance to the NGO involved in organising the event.
Speaking to the media, Gaude on Wednesday, before entering the Goa Legislative Assembly for the session, claimed that the audio clip was “fake” and the allegations against him are “false”. If this is true, then the Goa Police have a big task ahead to unearth the truth and find the people involved behind creating a fake audio clip, circulating it on social media and ensuring that the clip makes its way to all the media platforms.
On October 19, 2020, the then Deputy Chief Minister Chandrakant Kavlekar had lodged a complaint with the cyber police station claiming that his mobile phone was hacked and an objectionable clip was sent to a WhatsApp group of which he is a member. He had claimed that the message was sent when he was asleep and had demanded that police take strict action against the people involved. That complaint has yielded no results till date.
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) can once again literally push everything under the carpet by claiming the incident to be an ‘internal matter’, as was done when the accusations of siphoning of funds surfaced against Gaude. However, there are some serious concerns that arise from the viral audio clip as it involves a sitting cabinet minister, using foul language against the Chief Minister of the present-day government, the Speaker of the State’s Legislative Assembly and a government official who is performing his duties.
Hours after Gaude claimed the audio to be fake, Dashrath Redkar confirmed to the media that the audio clip was “his”. He remained tight-lipped on how the audio got leaked and denied to comment any further on the incident or the audio clip.
If the audio is indeed of Gaude and Redkar, then the government will have to act in accordance with the law against the Minister for threatening a government official and also through him threatening persons holding Constitutional positions, which can reach as far as to be termed to be anti-State activity. If any layman had to even utter a slur at any of the cabinet ministers, let alone the Chief Minister and the Speaker of the House, the person would have been booked and put behind bars by now under the strictest of Sections of the Indian Penal Code. Threatening the Director of a department would have attracted an additional punishment for stopping a government official from performing his duties.
Everyone would recall that in 2015, ex-tourism minister Mickky Pacheco was convicted for assaulting a junior engineer of the Electricity Department in 2006 and sentenced to imprisonment for six months, forcing him to resign from his ministerial post.
If the government fails to act in Gaude-Redkar case, then the Chief Minister and his government will have to face the consequences of laying the foundation of a lawless State just to safeguard one of their own. The Chief Minister has to rise above all compulsions of politics and immediately either drop the minister from the Cabinet or the least is to demand his resignation inorder to have a fair investigation into the matter.
