If there were any political lessons that needed to be learnt from the pattern of voting in the Goa Assembly, in the two elections for the post of President and the Rajya Sabha nominee from Goa, they are clear. When the voting is behind closed doors, and not identifiable, the Congress MLAs are ready to break rank with gay abandon. When open and controlled through a whip, they will carry out a pretence of unity.
But nothing that emerged from the two patterns of voting suggested that there was even a figment of imagination that the ruling coalition would crack and attach its wagons to the Congress bandwagon. Purely for the sake of argument, barring a near miracle of catastrophic proportions of the Congress pulling off the two by-elections in Panjim and Valpoi, the Congress’ hopes of getting a shot at governance is next to impossible.
This reality, has however put the onus squarely and completely on the BJP-lead coalition to deliver. The solidity of the coalition at this point of time, even if it is out of current necessities and compulsions and political realities, has given it the nature of a full majority government and therefore the governance agenda does not only need to be pursued, but the accountability factor will become even more intense. And the responsibility of this delivery lies in as much as the ruling party as the coalition partners.
The other reality is that the Goa Forward and the MGP need to carry the onus of expectations and deliver. And this is when the narrative moves from merely fulfilling manifesto promises to actually delivering a government which works for the people of Goa, and these, one must add, are not the one and the same thing.
Ultimately, irrespective of the political colour of the government, the expectations of the common man from every government are the same, delivery of services and infrastructure. And mind you, everything from getting permission to fell a coconut tree, to get a tenancy case settled, to getting quick and efficient treatment for the living in villages and good and functional morgues for the dead, come under the purview of services.
Therefore, the success of governance need not lie in areas where the government traditionally seeks, such as Rs 25,000 crore investment and 50,000 jobs.
The job issue is a contentious one. The pressure to get votes forced the previous government to throw economic indices to the winds resulting in a constantly growing salary and subsequently a mounting pension bill. There is no leeway to enhance government jobs, and private sector jobs through investments are often like a mirage. The job issue therefore has to be dealt with by creating a spirit of entrepreneurship or opening up new forms of wealth creation through traditional occupations, rather than aping bigger states.
But what will work best is when the common man’s first contact with the government at his panchayat, village, block and talukas is pleasurable and that’s not the case always. The problems can range from issues like a bloated and inefficient employee force in civic bodies, stinking garbage on roadsides even with the advent of waste treatment plants, no sewage pipelines, while there is a sewage treatment plant, a highway planned in 1977 which is still incomplete, a low lying bridge in Dhangarwada in Bicholim, which when submerged cuts, the village off civilisation for days, or two villages; Avdem and Paroda in Quepem, lost to the world as the bridge over the river Kushawati, built 46 years ago at the initiative of a Parish priest of Paroda, Joao Pereira, is submerged each monsoon. For the people in these villages and in so many interiors of Goa, Goenkarponn is all about a government that delivers to them a basic quality of life. For them, this is all important and not the awards Goa gets for being the best small state in terms of health, education etc.
Ultimately it is this alone which will decide the future of this coalition. This government needs to be the “God of small things”. Because these really, are the big things.
