TEAM HERALD
PANJIM: After so much of drama, even to the extent of cutting short his trip, the revolt by the deputy chief minister Francis D’ Souza fizzled out with D’Souza finally acquiescing and lo and behold actually seconding the proposal to make Laximikant Parsekar as the next chief minister of Goa.
Even when he went into the meeting of the BLP, Francis told media that he would stick to his stand that he was the best candidate as chief minister of the State and given that he was the deputy chief minister had to be elevated to that post.
Last night, he had told media after meeting the chief minister that he would speak to the high command and put forth his views. He did speak to the high command and he did put forward his views. But to no avail – he was forced to toe the party line. And though he put forward a brave face saying that he had put up some conditions and claimed that he had been assured autonomy as far as handling of his portfolios was concerned.
According to sources in the know, though the Mapusa MLA was not really inclined to compromise feeling terribly let down at the way he felt his friend and mentor Manohar Parrikar had basically washed his hands off his case putting the ball in the court of the high command.
However, sources say that his well wishers ultimately prevailed on him back down as he would be left out in the cold in case he stayed out of the cabinet. Maybe principles took a back seat and real politics came to the fore but he preferred to eat crow and follow the diktats of the high command and put a RSS man in command in the State – the second one in two weeks.
Reaction to his backing down has not been very good with many people from his own constituency saying that the move was bad and if he had no intention of standing his ground he should not have taken a stand at all and then backed down for his own personal gain.
