Paklo alias Sadanand Naik has
been a sitting councilor for three terms and is a veteran in municipality
politics. He’s well known for an act of touring his ward and his wife’s ward
every morning by bike, greeting supporters, asking their opinion on things and
looking into problems faced by residents of Gogol and Housing Board. Similarly,
Babita is known to visit the homes of women, assist self-help groups, visit
every resident’s home if there’s a death in the family and discusses issues of
garbage management in the vicinity. She’s even known for bringing the Sonsoddo
garbage dump supervisor to her ward and sorting out door to door garbage
collection if there is an issue.
“I never understand why Sadanand
has not been made the chairperson though he’s the senior most in the council.
Sadanand is always available in the ward from 7am and that makes a huge
difference,” asserted Sadanand Mahale from Housing Board, South Wing Colony.
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Similarly, Advocate Anand Sai
from Gogol informs us that Sadanand follows the same principal of touring the
constituency through the day until 8pm, visiting homes and discussing issues of
drainage, sewage and bush cutting. But residents also point out that the
husband wife-duo are very active in Ward 06-07 which is impressive but their
delivery and commitment on a job undertaken is very slow.
“Sadanand is good at PR and
being accessible, but if you go to see, he’s not fulfilled any promises made to
the locals,” explains Jeanette Pereira, a housing board resident for over
15-years.
The resident’s biggest grouse
has been the haphazard illegal construction across the constituency and the
large number of illegal hawkers given municipal licences to function in the
ward.
But the biggest problem is the lack
of roads in the constituency. The roads were dug up in February for laying a
sewerage line by JICA but they have not been fixed across Gogol and Housing
Board for over a month despite the huge inconvenience faced by the residents.
“The councilor needs to take up
bad roads with the PWD and the municipal council but Babita and Sadanand seem
busy with other things and our struggle seems to be falling on deaf ears,”
explained Kishel Fernandes from Babita’s ward.
Another resident Jayesh Anandi
informs us how Sadanand and Babita may sometimes be unavailable in the name of
touring the wards but the truth is that both have multiple trucks plying on the
mining routes and Sadanand is rarely available in the ward making it difficult
for people to access him with their issues.
POLITICAL EQUATION
The Husband-Wife duo are third
time and second time councillors respectively and sway across MLAs to keep
their power games sailing. Initially both were in the Digamabar Kamat – Vijai
Sardessai panel and then went with Aleixo Reginaldo during the 2012 Assembly polls
since the Gogol-Housing Board ward was made part of the Curtorim Constituency.
Later on, Sadanand shifted allegiance towards Arthur D’Silva on two occasions
to help him become Chairperson at a time when Sadanand and Babita were working
closely with neighbour and former MLA Damu Naik. The proximity is more to
protect the ward from delimitation of any kind. Sadanand is also a multiple
truck owner with his trucks previously involved in ore transport. Through his
political games, he got two of his trucks running on the bauxite route from
Betul. An aggressive Sadanand initially forced us to tour the ward and write
what we want but refused any interaction stating his very busy schedule but
later was fine with catching up with the Herald.
Q&A
People blame you for the bad
roads in Housing Board, that you’re not doing enough?
SADANAND: It’s not my fault if JICA
abandoned road repairs after finishing their sewerage works. I have followed up
and now the patching up of the road will commence. I am aware that people face
inconvenience but I sincerely couldn’t help it.
What about infrastructure? You
both seem to maintain only what exists in the wards?
BABITA: These are residential
areas with many temples and mosques and we can build parks and lawned areas but
we have maintained the spaces and we spend from our own pockets to buy
equipment like grass cutting machines, using our own labour and vehicles to
provide relief to citizens.
There’s not much you have done
in five-years except being accessible. Do you feel anti-incumbency will play a
role?
SADANAND: Way too early to say. This
government hardly released any funds to carry out development as councillors.
We struggled through the tenure and now it’s election time in two months.
But people know our contribution to their ward over the last 5 years.
This Margao Municipal Council
faces flak about being corrupt in the last five years. Do you think that
thought will rub on both of you at the elections?
BABITA: People elect their
representative based on performance and if we have performed well, we don’t
fear being not elected.
