Politics makes the MMC ‘Chair’ go round, Chief Officers be damned

When you walk into the heritage colonial building of the Margao Municipal Council, you’ll remember the scene in the recent hit film Nachumia Kumpasar where the entrance to the municipality is portrayed as a chaotic railway station. As you climb up the creaking wooden stairway and turn left who will come to a plush corridor which ends with the chairperson’s cabin to the right and the CO’s to the left. 

The end of the corridor is always tense. Security for the CO, people awaiting justice, while scores of supporters, small politicos vying in and out of the chairperson’s cabin.

This scene won’t change and neither will the tussle nor political interference by the BJP and its own government’s appointed Chief Officers.

Here’s Naveen SL, left red-faced by his own Urban Development Minister turning down a demolition order by him against a structure of the sitting chairperson Gonzaco Rebello. At the same time the chairperson is fighting a case against the CO of loss of revenue to the council because the IAS CO had gone on seven days leave.

In 2014, when Y B Tawde was Chief Officer, he joined hands with the former MLA of Fatorda Damu Naik and got a canteen contractor evicted from Ravindra Bhavan. The canteen contractor was evicted before his time and was simply found at fault to have been floundering his municipality-issued trade licence which was untrue. But the same Y B Tawde refused to take action against the ras-omelette gaddas at the Margao Bus Stand.

In 2013, in this chair was Deepali Naik as CO and she started a cleanliness drive and action drive against the market vendors encroaching space in the New Market corridors. 

The BJP panel led by BJP Margao Mandal not just opposed her move against bringing reforms in the market, but sent her packing. Deepali ran in into rough waters when she ordered Municipality Market inspector Anil Shirodkar to take strict action. Shirodkar’s own brother, a MMC councillor, led the revolt against the Chief Officer.

In late 2012, Srinet Kotwale was a stern CO posted at Margao Municipal Council and was very serious in implementing the bio-metric system to crackdown against the municipal employees reporting late to duty. Kotwale faced resistance from the then chairperson Arthur D’Silva, a close aide of the BJP and then the former Fatorda MLA Damu Naik who stepped in support of the municipal union and its erring employees and got Kotwale out of his post.