Team Herald
PANJIM: Goa’s Opposition parties have launched a scathing attack on the BJP government, demanding that it appeal against the acquittal of Panchayats Minister Mauvin Godinho and others in the alleged 1998 power rebate scam – a case originally pursued by the BJP under late Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar when Godinho was in the Opposition.
Leader of the Opposition Yuri Alemao said the Sawant government cannot remain silent.
“The BJP government has previously defied the High Court's order declaring the Mhadei Wildlife Sanctuary and its surrounding areas as a Tiger Reserve and challenged it in the Supreme Court. Numerous other court orders have been challenged in the Apex Court in the past,” Alemao said.
“Now too, the government should challenge Panchayat Minister Mauvin Godinho's matter in the higher court; otherwise, it will undermine its own leader late Manohar Parrikar, and expose its washing machine politics,” Alemao added.
Goa Forward Party (GFP) President and Fatorda MLA Vijai Sardesai recalled how Parrikar had originally pursued the case. “Manohar Parrikar had filed a case that it was a power scam. Then, five years ago in December 2016, the same Parrikar attempted to highlight that there was an ‘attempt to scam’ and these charges got automatically diluted with this statement.”
“Subsequently, Godinho joined the BJP and became a Minister, and as a Minister, he has now been acquitted. So, it raises two questions: Whether the ruling party uses this technique of filing cases and then making you join their party,” he added.
“Even considering Parrikar's popularity and the respect he commanded among a certain section of Goa’s population – many of whom are still loyal to the BJP or were loyalists of the ‘earlier BJP’ – now the question for them is: Is Parrikar’s legacy dead? Is Parrikar irrelevant in Goa’s politics today?” Sardesai asked.
He said the acquittal throws up two troubling issues – whether the BJP routinely files cases only to later bring opponents into the party, and whether Parrikar’s legacy has been buried under the present dispensation.
“Those whom Parrikar alleged to be scamsters have now been accepted by the (BJP) system – they are being vindicated and their stand is being validated, not directly by the judiciary, but essentially by the Goa establishment. So, BJP loyalists who followed Parrikar are left to think, to introspect, and to seek the guidance of Lord Ganesh during this Ganesh Chaturthi – for deciding the future course of action. Ganpati Bappa will surely give them the right path and wisdom,” Sardesai stated.
Former Goa Pradesh Congress Committee President and AICC Working Committee member Girish Chodankar called the verdict a “mockery of justice,” accusing the BJP of hypocrisy and selective action against corruption.
“This case was exposed by none other than late Manohar Parrikar, who as Leader of the Opposition accused Godinho of granting an illegal 25 per cent power rebate to two industrial units, causing a Rs 4.5 crore loss to the State. On his complaint, the Crime Branch filed an FIR in 1998, charging Godinho with forgery, cheating, abuse of power and criminal conspiracy. He was even arrested in 2001, when Parrikar was Chief Minister. Parrikar and the BJP gained political capital out of this and tried to damage the reputation of our party.
The High Court in 2007 and the Supreme Court in 2018 found enough evidence to proceed with trial. Now, 27 years later, Godinho is acquitted. What changed? Was Parrikar wrong, or has the BJP conveniently gone silent because Godinho sits in their cabinet today?” Chodankar asked.
He said the Sawant government was practising “double standards and political convenience” on corruption. “When it’s the Opposition, the BJP rushes to appeal. When it’s their own minister, they look the other way. Goa wants to know whether this government will challenge the acquittal in the High Court? Or will it quietly bury Parrikar’s own allegations? Either they appeal, or they must admit Parrikar misled Goans for decades,” he said.
Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) State President Adv Amit Palekar also demanded that the BJP clarify its stand.
“BJP should answer this question: whether Parrikar at that time falsely accused Godinho just to bring him into his party, and then cleaned him up or absolved him? Why were IPC sections altered during mid-trial? Why was it done at the fag end of the trial?
The BJP should file an appeal or say that Parrikar was wrong and that he did it only to get Godinho into their party. That is what BJP is doing nationally today. The BJP should challenge the verdict. Otherwise, the same practice is being repeated all over India right now – accuse the opposition, then get them into the BJP and then ‘wash’ them off,” Palekar said.