Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar must be wondering why he had to say those words. They were not needed and they made no difference either to the perception or the reality of the drug filled way of life in the north coastal belt. The Chief Ministers remark that there are only a few tourists who come here to take drugs, must have gone up in a smoky chillum haze or lost in a line of cocaine. There is a system that operates in the drug republic which is comment and criticism proof.
It is now officially known that this belt is also political intervention and police proof.
In fact the Arts and Culture minister Dayanand Mandrekar had openly criticized a former SP Vijay Singh for raiding beach restaurants alleging that he was killing the business. That officer was shunted out to the Traffic department. Mandrekar rubbed salt in his wounds by saying that non local officers do not know how to work in Goa. He is right. Politicians in Goa’s north coastal belt have re-written the police manual.
A couple of years later, when Vijay Singh was asked about those times, he remarked, with a condition that he should not be quoted while in service in Goa (he has recently moved out of the state). “I did not know the special rules then. I was then taught the rules. I came here wanting to do things the way we were taught at the police academy. But we all learn.”
The market meanwhile is open. Goan pushers, and the Nigerians and the Israelis and the Russian are seen openly peddling their wares and tourists from all over India and abroad come for their dose of nirvana.
And the playground is a large stretch of North Goa running through the constituencies of powerful BJP Ministers and MLAs. Mandrem is Chief Minister Parsekar’s constituency and runs through the beaches of Ashwem and Morjim. Art and Culture minister Dayanand Mandrekar Siolim spans the Anjuna and Vagator beaches and the Calangute BJP MLA Michael Lobo has the tourist magnet beaches Calangute and Candolim in his area.
This is where it all happens. While Mandrekar has been in power for four terms (18 years), for parsekar this is his third term (13 years) as MLA’s, so they don’t even have an excuse to blame anyone else. And Lobo, who blamed his predecessor Agnelo Fernandes for not clamping down on the drug trade, now claims that the situation has improved. That is clearly not the case.
No one, absolutely no one has the will or the ability to clamp down on the only industry which does not have negative growth in Goa.
