PANJIM: If you thought the Parliament of India has a problem finding a designated leader of the opposition, the assembly of Goa has a bigger problem, finding a leader who can oppose. In the budget session of the Goa assembly starting next week, the strength of the ruling party and its associates of “altar boys”, the independent MLAs will be as good as 30. The declared opposition is 10, which has 9 of the Congress and the sole independent leader who opposes the government, Fatorda MLA Vijai Sardesai. The equation gets further skewed if you transfer Mauvin Godinho’s loyalties to the BJP, thereby making the effective Govt Vs Opposition headcount 31 (30 without the Speaker) – 9.
As Herald reported in its first of a there part Back Story, the nine-member Congress team is in such a disarray, that it has not even converged to brainstorm on a strategy to take on the BJP. There were some murmurs heard about the Congress preparing a chargesheet against the BJP government but that has effectively been stymied since Congressmen have been busy otherwise. The party President John Fernandes has spent time attacking his own leader of the opposition through his crony and henchman, Naik of Dahej Minerals, whose illegal mining interests Fernandes sought to protect. Rane has spent time preparing his anticipatory bail application fearing arrest and so has his son and Valpoi MLA Vishwajit Rane.
In fact so open is the opposition within the Congress that one MLA told Herald, “I don’t even feel like going to the assembly to see the faces of our m…key’s”, a derogatory reference, attributed to Congress MLAs, to a species of mammals a step lower in the evolution chain. The state of the party is evident when you see that with barely two more working days to go before the session starts, the Congress had time to change the Convenor of its disciplinary committee but no time to call a meeting of the CLP to discuss the chargesheet against the government.
Therefore, with the Congress in this cesspool from which it does not know how to emerge, Sardesai has had a clear field to play. He has taken maximum advantage of asking a quota of about 18 questions a day for each of the 21 working days adding upto to over 350 questions. It is learnt that some Congress MLAs not quite having the time or inclination to participate in debates will allow Sardesai a share of their time.
A direct confrontation between Sardesai and Parrikar will be witness on 50 issues. Of this the Herald has culled out ten big ticket ones which will be keenly watched. They include the Non Notification of the Regional Plan, the controversial appointment of sub registrars under the Special Marriage Act to solemnize the marriage of the daughter of senior Supreme Court Advocate Harish Salve, foreign junkets of MLAs and ministers, land acquisition for the Mopa airport, Vigilance investigation into PWD works, power requirement and availability, assault on BJP MLA Vishnu Wagh and the three big ticket policies on Investment, Tourism and Mining.
But the larger narrative will be about positioning and power play. While numerically the BJP is 30 plus Mauvin Godinho, they really just make up the numbers. It was and will continue to be Parrikar show. He will speak for all departments. And his only opponent will be Vijai Sardesai, who is independent in the true sense and does not share or carry either the Congress baggage, its confusion or its reluctance to take on the government. He told Herald, “I have exhausted my quota of questions, have asked all. My job is to hold the Chief Minister accountable. The assembly is the place to do it. The Chief Minister has been responding to issues outside and through the media. The real test is in the house.”
Hardly ever before has the Goa assembly, with a history of regional powerful satraps with their own fiefdoms, been about two people – a Chief Minister and an independent opposition MLA.
