Development is an essential feature of any country or a state. It is the hallmark of good governance. It involves meticulous planning, proper preparation and effective implementation not forgetting the massive expenditure. Developmental works can be undertaken and executed only by the government, using money collected from the taxes from the citizens of the country or the state. It is the duty of the government to see that development is taking place uniformly across the country or the state without discrimination between different constituencies.
Without appropriate and uniform development the country or the state remains underdeveloped. People’s lives are also highly inconvenienced.
Now for some years, Goa’s development and infrastructure are witnessing immense gaps and deficiencies because the government is unfairly targeting constituencies represented by opposition MLAs and this encourages defections from one political party to the other. Since the last two elections, we have seen that at least 18 elected members of legislative assembly of Goa leaving the Congress party on whose tickets they have been elected and joining the ruling party, even though on the eve of joining the ruling party, they reiterate that the news of their defections are just rumours and have no credibility.
When questioned about their joining the new party, they have but one common answer. It is because “we felt that by remaining as opposition MLAs there were no possibilities of making good whatever promises we had made to the voters or achieving any worthwhile development in their constituencies”. Moreover when they join the ruling party, they receive solemn promises that their respective constituencies will receive priority from the government.
However people have a completely different view about their defection (Hence this particular bogey which being constantly played like a broken record before the people is never taken seriously). They rightly presume that their MLAs have joined the ruling dispensation at least for one of the four probable reasons
One, they have been promised some good positions in the government. It could be a ministerial berth or a chairmanship of some corporations.
Two, they received or promised a substantial amount of money that cannot be resisted because of their greed of getting richer in the shortest possible time.
Three, in some cases, it may be possible that they have some skeletons in their closets which could be investigated by some of the agencies such as ED, CBI, income, income tax, and so on.
Four, it may be because the current government has no intentions to carry out any tangible development and by keeping their constituencies undeveloped will unleash criticism of the MLAs by the voters
Under the circumstances, it appears that sometimes the government is partial, giving an impression that the government does not consider itself to be democratic ruler of the entire state.
Undoubtedly this is a very serious situation. A government which swears to represent every section of Goans and develop every part of Goa cannot simply ignore and neglect selected areas from providing the much needed facilities, infrastructure and developmental activities. Now such acts of neglect and exploitation cannot be acceptable to the people. Voters elect representatives for bringing about progress in their constituencies and not to change the party and join the ruling dispensation. This is certainly not good governance. It is not befitting the democratic process.
Unfortunately defections from opposition parties to the ruling party continue unabated. Neither the Speaker of the House, nor the Election Commission nor the Judiciary have been forthcoming to resolve the issue of defections satisfactorily. Sadly the voters too don’t have any say or can play an active role that empowers them to recall such opportunistic elected representatives.
Finally if the government feels that it is not discriminating between the constituencies regarding the development, it has to make a categorical statement refuting the insinuations made by the defectors, that they have joined the BJP “for the sake of development”.
