Team Herald
PANJIM: Former minister Vassu Paik Gaonkar is a pale shadow of his past as he is recovering from a debilitating paralytic stroke that afflicted him about five years ago. The right side of his body is limp but worse is that his speech is affected and he can barely be understood.
Gaonkar served as Transport, Panchayat and Provedoria minister during the tumultuous times when governments kept changing in Goa.
He was first elected to the then Legislative Assembly of Goa, Daman & Diu as the Indian National Congress (Urs) candidate from the then Canacona constituency in 1980. Four years later he once again got elected from the same constituency as Indian National Congress candidate as by that time INC(U) had merged with INC(I) to become INC once again.
He was elected for the third time in 1989 but this time as a member of the Goa Legislative Assembly as by then Goa was declared a State. Gaonkar won these elections by a slender margin of only 85 votes.
At the next elections in 1994, Jagdish Acharya the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party candidate defeated Gaonkar with a very comfortable margin of 1116 votes and since then Gaonkar retired from politics.
Of his five children two continued their lives without any interest in politics. However his son Suddesh Gaonkar contested the panchayat elections unsuccessfully and his daughter Anusha Gaonkar contested the last Zilla Panchayat elections, but lost.
Uday Gaonkar who had shown keen interest in politics by keeping the organization built up by his father alive, has since given it up as he has started working as a teacher away from Canacona.
Vassu Paik Goankar spends his time at home only where his wife looks after him. However, every morning he comes down to Praksh General store that is close to his house where he diligently reads every page of two newspapers namely a Marathi daily an English daily.
He remembers being an MLA and minister, and though he tries to narrate some incidents, what he says cannot be understood and as one nods the head he just looks at you with a huge smile lighting up his face.
