Parrikar’s glorification after his death, time to show journalists the mirror. – By Nisser Dias.

Reading local news dailies a day after the demise of Manohar Parrikar gave an impression that the news dailies were interceding with the creator to accept the departed chief minister of Goa directly to heaven.

His glorification in the newspapers was to such an extent that it painted a rosy picture of an individual and a politician without any blemish.

In stark contrast late Manohar Parrikar was vindictive, arrogant and highly communal. It does not end there he did not have respect for law and order and above all a tyrannical, despotic, autocratic and manipulative as chief minister who did not believe in morals, principles and moreover democratic norms. He conducted himself as a ‘know it all’ personality. In all the matters it was his way all the way.

Can we forget way back in 2004, he tried to cling to power by bodily lifting Velim MLA Filipneri Rodrigues out of the Assembly? That was the black day for law and order in the State of Goa, as policemen were used as ‘Marshals’ of the Assembly for this act. Have we forgotten the school rape victim, whose investigation was allowed to run cold before handing it over to the CBI or for that matter the killers of Fr. Bismarck are still at large.

In more recent times, somewhere after Parrikar took over the reins of state in 2012, hooligans and goons were informed about a group of activists having a meeting about the ill-effects of illegal mining allowed by his government in Margao and the activists were held captive, threatened to kill and rescued after hours of anxiety.

Adolf Hitler

The late chief minister of Goa was highly manipulative. Have we forgotten Francis Pereira ‘Boy’ who was arrested by the police in desecration of places of worship? When the courts discharged him from most of the false cases against him, Francis blasted Parrikar for personally requesting him to take the blame for it in exchange for money and government job for his nephew.

Part-time CM (he never completed a single term in office) had a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde personality. He would proclaim his love for Goa but do quite the contrary. Was it not on his watch that regional plan 2011 was designed by his then minister Babush Monserrate which made people rise in unison against it. Was it not during his term as chief minister that the loot and plunder of natural resources of Goa commenced?

After 2004, he bounced back to power in 2012 with promises of saving Goa, packing the casinos out of river Mandovi. The answer is for all to see. Infact he allowed the number of casinos to increase in the river and the Congress had aptly said that the casinos were the ATMs of the BJP.

Just as it said that leopard never changes its spots, the autocratic and despotic chief minister of Goa also did not change his crooked ways and means. If in 2004 he used muscle power to remain in power but was sacked by Governor S C Jamir. In 2017 he used dirty tricks to cobble the numbers in the Assembly and attained power, when the people had refused BJP the mandate. This time round the creator seems to have had enough of the mess and dismissed him from the face of the earth.

Idi Amin

The news dailies called him great leader, able administrator, visionary blah, blah. Did his vision have a goal? If so why is the economy of state in doldrums? Why is the standard of education very low? Why disciplinary force (police) in the state is most undisciplined?

Former chief minister Laxmikant Parsekar once said that Parrikar has not left anything for him to borrow money from. For the few months the administration is find it difficult to pay salaries to government employees. In some cases staff has not been paid for couple of months. PWD contractors are begging to be paid for the work carried out.

Cops have been caught red-handed accepting bribes; some have even raped their own colleagues and minors. The goons in uniform assaulted a family in full public view at Fatorda stadium and at Assolna out post. These are just some examples to indicate that under the term of chief minister late Manohar Parrikar and news papers portrayed him otherwise upon his death.

There is old saying, “if you do not read newspapers you’re uninformed and if you read you’re misinformed.” The hat fits the current dailies.

Maybe, the news dailies through their journalists were paying back Parrikar for all the goodies and schemes he designed to muzzle the media person. Those journalists who would not fall for his bait were targeted.

Antonio de Oliveira Salazar

The coalition government in Goa that the departed chief minister led was not very different from a prostitution den. Prior 2012, Manohar Parrikar did not miss an opportunity to point out acts of omission and commission of the politicians like Pandurang Madkaikar, Vishwajit Rane, and Vijay Sardessai. Parrikar had even filed criminal cases against Mauvin Godinho in power scam.

But the same politicians were his cabinet colleagues after the 2017 assembly elections. It is an established norm that the chief minister chief picks-up his cabinet and Manohar Parrikar chose the same names he bitterly opposed and criticized. This indicated the moral character of the person.

For late Manohar Parrikar, morals and values never mattered as long as he was in ‘power’. To the extent that though he knew he was dying he clung to power and when his government was on shaky grounds, he dropped two ailing ministers late Francis D’souza and Pandurang Madkaikar but he held on to power till his last breath.

To take a small sneak into his acts of vindictiveness, the most recent was the dismissal of his mentor’s son from a private car company. Prior to that, during 2002-2004 he orchestrated raids on the hospital run by most respected Dr. Francisco Colaco and establishments owned by businessman Datta Naik. The transfer of a young judge, who passed an order to search the official residence of Union Defence minister, is yet another incident and the hounding of Margao MLA Digambar Kamat in the illegal mining cases and Louis Berger is still red hot.

This is just a tip of the iceberg, one can write volumes of wrong-doings of a dictator called Manohar Parrikar, but the journalists of all new dailies existing in Goa projected only the rosy picture of him.

There is a notion somewhere that one should not say or write hurtful stuff about the dead, but all the time we learn, read about cruel dictators like Adolf Hitler, Antonio de Oliveira Salazar, Idi Amin all the time. Manohar Parrikar was Goa’s dictator indeed. Whether he was all rosy as it was portrayed by the news dailies is for people to judge.

It is time to show the mirror to the journalists who have become of puppets of politicians.

Is Congress party in Goa engineering its own defeat? –By Nisser Dias

AICC president Rahul Gandhi

All India Congress party president Rahul Gandhi is burning candles at both ends not only to build bridges between the veterans and young gen congress men, but also between various political parties in a concerted effort to keep the BJP out of power not only at the centre but  also to eject them from various states.

His efforts have paid off in the Hindi heartland is recent assembly elections. At the same time the always smiling Gandhi scion has rattled Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his sidekick Amit Shah.

Goa Desk In-charge
Chella Kumar

Sadly though congress men and women in Goa are doing just the opposite of what their president is doing thereby digging a deeper wedge into the already existing fissures among its members.

There is old saying about Congress in Goa, ‘Congressmen in Goa do not require external opposition as there is load of opposition within itself and the word ‘unity’ does not exist in their dictionary.’

Let’s us get down to knick-knacks, two pseudo congressmen Subhash Shirodkar and Dayanand Sopte got elected on the congress during 2014 Assembly election. A year later they dumped the party and jumped on to the BJP bandwagon.

Instead of grooming the second rung congress leaders to contest the election, the state congress president Girish Chodankar is offering the defeated BJP leaders like Laxmikant Parsekar and others to contest on the Congress tickets.

Basically what Chodankar is doing is strangulating young blood that has remained loyal to the party and literally selling to the rivals.

Churchill Alemao and his daughter Valanka

One of congress office aptly compared the party ticket seekers to Chinese goods who bag the congress candidature and when the time is ripe switch over to the BJP.

Shiroda constituency has been the congress bastion but the Chodankar is inducing the staunch BJP workers promising them the ticket by denying party workers.

In Mandrem, the same man is trying to woo former BJP chief minister Laxmikant Parsekar to contest on the Congress.

Has the Congress which has a fair chance of winning back both the seat become so bankrupt that it does not have its own men to contest these elections that they need to hire defeated candidates from the BJP?

It only conveys one message loud and clear to party sympathizers and analysts that elections time is ‘briefcase’ and ‘suitcase’ time. It seems that Goa congress president Girish Chodankar and Goa desk in-charge Chella Kumar are engineering their own defeat for obvious reasons, otherwise why would these two personalities encourage 8 candidates from Shiroda constituency itself to make a show of their interest in contesting the bye elections when they could have identified just one candidate, assured him the ticket and asked him to commence his campaign in the constituency.

Pratima Coutinho and Girish
Chodankar

While other parties like the BJP and MGP have not only started canvassing but have already completed one round, Congress is yet to name its party candidate.

It does not end here, Chella Kumar and Girish Chodankar seem to be acting like BJP agents in the congress to oversee the defeat of its candidate even in the Lok Sabha polls.

The polls are slated in couple of months but the candidates are yet to be decided. And there seems to be deep rooted plan to keep good candidates out of the picture.

Mahila president Pratima Coutinho, former youth congress chief Valanka Alemao, ex MP Francisco Sardinha and it is rumoured that even Girish Chodankar himself is vying for ticket to contest parliamentary polls.

Lets us begin with Pratima Coutinho. With polls in mind she started taking up issues, sitting on dharnas, confronting department heads. She created social media groups of key party bearers in Goa and Delhi, another group of reporters and has been posting all her activity.  Recently at one talks, one of the speakers called her a non-Goan which she is and went on to predict that she is not going win.

Francisco Sardinha

Beyond that her closeness to Goa Forward top leadership is well known and it is being rumoured that she is being egged on to contest so that BJP south Goa MP who is seeking a second term gets a walkover. Incidentally she has not raised a protest of banner against the functioning of the Goa Forward TCP minister for allegedly bulldozing the ODP plan for Ponda and Margao or for the presence of bouncers for the same meeting.Valanka after her being denied the party ticket during the last Assembly husting was not at all in circulation. But Chella Kumar is rumoured to have approached NCP legislator Churchill Alemao to support Congress to form the government in Goa. In turn Alemao extracted his pound of flesh. Now his daughter has applied for the party ticket for Lok Sabha seat. To muddy the waters further, Girish Chodankar himself is one of the aspirants. Now all this game is to sideline the fourth applicant and that is former MP Francisco Sardinha.

The lines between both the political
parties are blurring

If at all one of the four candidates has a slight chance of winning the south Goa Lok Sabha seat it is Sardinha, because he has personal voters and workers.

It might look that GPCC president is all out to galvanize the Congress in Goa, but minute analysis indicate that he is giving away all the seats to the BJP on a platter.