In the 21-day long Budget session of the State Legislative Assembly, Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar acted as a perfect
“team captain” within the context of collective responsibility, rescuing few of his cabinet colleagues, who even after two
and half years of being in power were unable to tide over a “weak opposition.” The Team Captain this time had to rescue
his Ministers not just from the Opposition but from the ruling benches as well, who were more aggressive than the principal
Opposition –the Congress.
Minister for Environment Alina Saldanha, Health Laxmikant Parsekar, Tourism Dilip Parulekar, Water Resources Dayanand Mandrekar and Sports Ramesh Tawadkar were accosted and grilled by MLAs on issues such as CRZ, forest cover,
tourism junket, Mhadei, illegal ration cards, death which allegedly occurred due to 108 ambulances, backlog of vacancies
of ST and SC and cricket ticket scam.
The Ministers tried to defend their departments but failed to convince the legislators. In one instance, Leader of
Opposition Pratapsing Rane even taunted at the Minister saying “don’t sleep”. Moreover the lack of information about their
own department was exposed on the Floor when Alina said “I don’t keep every details of what is happening”, an answer
that angered most legislators. While Minister Mandrekar and Tawadkar’s replies failed to convince most of the
MLAs, Parulekar in his own style of story telling tried to convince his colleagues, which also proved futile.
As the crucial team members were about to get bowled out, Captain Parrikar stood, intervening in each and every matter,
gave assurances to convince his colleagues. Parrikar, who initially stayed calm, watching the entire match, had to then
come to the rescue, when his Cabinet players missed every ball bowled by the Opposition and ruling MLAs. The game
that initially looked going out of hands of BJP-led government was turned completely by Parrikar. For instance, Minister
for Environment and Forest Alina Saldanha was at the receiving end of her own party legislators’ ire. They alleged that they were facing severe difficulties in cutting of branches of trees that were dangerous to residents’ houses and wires in their respective constituencies. The MLAs said that approaching the forest department to get the trees cut was an arduous task. Their unwillingness to let her off the hook forced the Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar to finally intervene and interject that that
one of the three Panchayat Act provisions states that the owner can cut the dangerous branches/trees and inform the forest
department within 24 hours. But he also expressed the fear that taking this as an excuse, trees that do not pose a danger could be cut. However, he said that they were studying the possibility of possible amendments to the Act.
Health Minister Laxmikant Parsekar responding to the pointed criticism on shortage of medicines at village dispensaries
said that they were available at all dispensaries and if there was a shortage at any particular dispensary, they had to pick
them up from Panjim. The minister told the House that this time Rs 1.5 crore worth of medicines were purchased and there
was still some stock left and a new tender of Rs 3 crore would be floated in the next couple of days and new medicines would
be available within a month.
However, legislators were not willing to accept this reply and wanted the government to take responsibility and check
on shortages forcing an aggressive chief minister to come to the rescue of the minister telling the House that the “Government
knows that it is supposed to look after.” He also said that if “your animal is sick, and if you have any consideration for it
you would run (to get help). The chief minister accused an MLA of putting ‘masti’ in his tone and said he did not deserve a reply. Parrikar also defended Parsekar saying: “Does the minister have to go to the hospital and check. The officers are there to check.”
