Lively debate on power subsidized and free in Delhi and Goa… Power minister Nilesh Cabral of Goa (left), moderator Rupesh Samant and Power Minister of Delhi, Satyendar Jain organised by Aam Aadmi Party. (below) Huge entourage of Police outside Institute Menezes Braganza and restricted audience in the hall due to covid-19 protocol.

Beginning with 300 units of power free to Goans if it comes to power in Goa!

POLITICS is kind of losing its marbles and the run up to the next Assembly elections has started. With promises of freebies raining down on an already hapless people of Goa – but ache din will come only in the future and if all goes well and the Aam Aadmi party is fairly and honorably into power!
Life may not be hotting up between ruling BJP and old-timers Congress party but it is certainly hotting up between still gutsy newbies AAP going all out to wake Goans up from their perceived slumber…from the looks and sound of it every wannabe politician old and not so old today wants to wake up citizens to smell the coffee of politics or so to speak. Only nobody knows for whom the coffee is and how sweet and bitter it is!
Take this just over great power debate which took place between Goa’s Power Minister Nilesh Cabral and Delhi’s Power Minister Satyendar Jain at the Menezes Braganza Hall on July 26, 2021. The AAP challenge had been thrown and Goa’s Power Minister Nilesh Cabral gamely took it up. Good lord, the collection of police outside Institute Menezes Braganza was worth noting, I mean this was supposed to be a public meeting but only media and privileged people were allowed in after they provided some credentials. If you were ordinary aam aadmi interested in your future…it was nothing doing. Many senior citizens were being turned away and they lamented their plight to whoever they recognized going in and out.
THE hall was half empty but the debate going on was thrilling. Especially after Satyenderji openly taunted BJP’s Nilesh bab for being a “third class politician.” Presumably, referring to the number of defecting politicians in the ruling BJP. Remember the shocking defections which took place from the Congress after the late Manohar Parrikar decided to steal the victory from the Congress after it failed to decide who should be chief minister in 2917?
Many Goans think the BJP victory in Goa is a najiaz or illegitimate victory in a sort of fasters finger forward trickery game! Ten Congress politicians led by one master manipulator Babush Monseratte had defected, goodbye Congess, hello BJP? We all know by now how BJP has monetized politics, don’t we?

Anyway to stay with the great power debate between AAP and BJP – it is not hard to say who won. An undoubtedly gallant Nilesh bab played into the hands of the softer, more evil Satyendra Kumar Jain….but he did protest when Jain needlessly made the sly crack about third class politicians of Goa. Naturally Nilesh Cabral couldn’t walk out on such an insult for that would be seen as a sign of defeat!
I must say moderator senior journalist Rupesh Samant tried to do a good job despite the slanging match which got under way with Goa’s Power Minister insisting that the BJP could afford subsidized power but not free power. “Nothing in life is for free,” he argued, “even I as power minister have to pay my power bills!” Which had everyone in the audience laughing for in the very next breath he conceded that power was free for MLAs and in fact power in Goa was subsidized for politicians…after that it was all about nit-picking and all downhill with a less than amicable parting. But everyone got educated in Goa’s power woes with all the talk of how it is coming all the way from Jharkand, Uttarakand, Himachal Pradesh…not cutting any ice with anyone.
To make matters worse after the debate there were a whole bunch of BJP karyakarta down on the streets outside Braganza Menezes Building being managed by police, and they were on a shouting orgy of “Satyendar chor hai’ and much else!
This is to say if all goes well and the Aap Aadmi party survives all the BJP exchange of words accompanied by goondagiri ranging from mild to violent (as we have seen in past incidents) and actually wins the electoral battle in terms of votes – Goans are assured a quota of 300 units of power free 24 by 7; waiver of past billings; also farmers can look forward to free power. According to Delhi’s Satyendarji it’s all a narrative of political corruption and mismanagement. Get the systems in place and a government can actually offer primary freebies to its citizens in dire straits, and the Delhi government boasts of a surplus budget!
IT is true a lot of allegations are being made about Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal these early pre-election days and some of them may stick or not; yet, it is a fact that he and his government have eased life for the poorer classes in Delhi with first class education in public schools, mohalla clinics, free travel for women and more. In fact, I’d say Kejriwal has done better in Delhi than Babush Monserrate in Goa vis-à-vis cultivating vote banks!
By all means ring up your Delhi friends and confirm this if you wish. In politics the good and the bad mingle but weigh the pros and cons – who’s more honest and upfront? Of course, one is looking for a ray of hope and glimmer of true gold to enable the people of this country to clean up the dirty political slate of our fading democratic times!
INCIDENTALLY, I must mention here that all political parties currently are reaching out to help those affected by the tragedies of the accursed covid-19 pandemic, lockdowns and now the widespread flooding of homes in Goa’s hinterlands….the ruling BJP party is helping out through all its Prime Minister Narendra Modi welfare programs, there are help lines on the BJP website (call Shabhir Jamadar on 9763139428 if you are in desperate situation), there are also the AAP and Congress helplines too.
Plus, all the parties vying for power are promoting themselves on social media big time with pictures galore of bagged essential rations being distributed to whoever comes forward…one grapevine tells me some MLAs in power are charging for the “freebie” rations and giving them free only to those they consider friends. (Sigh) I must confess, my dears, even in the media nowadays it is hard to sieve truth from lies and lies from truth and lies in larger lies, and truths in larger truths.
It’s a real rigmarole of hypocrisy visible as clear as daylight. I’m awaiting for Kalayug to come to a close and the rule of true Ramrajya, preferably Krishnaraj (for he was kinder to women!)…today’s Ravanraj is fraught with madness to stay in power by hook or by crook, by shouting matches and abysmal ignorance of facts, and what makes for justice for whom in the long run, in the interests of State and country at micro and macro level.
ON that note I will say here that yes, I will be voting for AAP which deserves at least one chance to prove itself, although there is always the fear nowadays that it might well turn out to be Biwi No.1 or Biwi No.2 — of whichever party comes to power legitimately, or through default. Politics is the ultimate Russian roulette and one never can tell how the dice will fall. And we think we are a democracy with so little democratic conviction in our constantly brain-washed heads!
On that note it’s avjo, poiteverem, selamat datang, au revoir, arrivedecci and vachun yetta here for now.

— Mme Butterfly