MARGAO: The much-hyped meet at Lohia Maidan, to celebrate the birth anniversary of India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, had all the masala and ingredients to get the crowd to enjoy the flavours presented.
It being Children’s Day, there were a lot children present at the meeting and with Congress leaders wearing scarves, the party colours were very visible. The occasional shouts from the crowd gave the meeting the atmosphere of a concert, but the short show, spanning over two hours seemed to lack that final punch.
The event was certainly choreographed by Margao MLA Digambar Kamat and his team so much so that their slogans punctured the air every time Kamat finished a sentence the way a short drum roll is used at the end of a standup comedian’s jokes.
And the usually sombre Kamat chose the avatar of a comedian on stage and was in riveting form as his original jokes managed to have everyone in the crowd in splits, though there were many from rival parties, or supporters of independents.
One of the best jokes was when Kamat exclaimed that one day Amitabh Bachchan would ask which is the best district collectorate building on his Kaun Banega Crorepati show and the South Goa Collectorate building would be the correct answer.
While many snickered about Kamat’s own crorepati image, Kamat used references from Mahabharat to Lalu Prasad Yadav to ridicule the BJP.
It was these jokes that turned out to be crowd pullers and the gleeful expressions on those seen standing near the gates or leaning against the trees in the maidan to get a look at the stage was evident that they were more interested in the tiatr-like presentation than the seriousness of the subjects.
The handling of the crowd turned out to be a slight embarrassment to the Congress as there was a comical domino effect when party workers were distributing phone numbers displayed on tiny placards with information about the helpline and for some reason people took this as a cue to leave the maidan. Congress local leaders were seen rushing to get the crowd, especially the women to stay till the end.
There were also mock bets placed by those on the fringes of the crowd as to who would come up and who would not and the speculation was that Curtorim MLA Aleixo Reginaldo Lourenco turned up only after he was assured that his bête noir Francisco Sardinha would not address the crowd.
Similarly, all eyes were on rival factions in constituencies and while Faleiro spoke about a united front, the mood on the ground was all speculation on who would get the ticket.
