NEW BEGINNINGS FOR NAVELIM MLA AND CONGRESSMAN OF 40 YEARS…. dropped a bombshell at a five-star venue press conference, he has resigned/defected to Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress to play a key role in national politics to take on the BJP’s communal and divisive politics. Simple, humble Mamata-didi with a fighting spirit is the 75 years old something politician’s new muse, Sonia Gandhi may take a backseat! He told media people, “I am also a fighter!”
THE antics of our politicians have become pure paise feko tamasha dekho entertainment affairs in recent times and don’t ask me why I want to write a political column here this week! Indian politics is becoming crazier and crazier drunk as it is with ambition beyond justification.
Clearly, the bug has now bitten West Bengal’s Ma Durga alias Mamata-didi and her Trinamol party — flush with her recent victory over the BJP duo Narendra Modi and Amit Shah from the national platform. Now Ma Durga, sorry Ma Mamata-didi, wants to spread her wings and fly high till she lands on the throne of India in Delhi itself. Oh, of course, why not, she has my blessings.
But guess who is going to help her? This week in Goa was entertaining with grand old Congressman (never mind how young his blood is), one time chief minister and Navelim MLA Luizinho Faleiro, announcing he has suffered too much and done enough tapasya for the welfare of the Congress – he has given in his papers to Congress boss Sonia Gandhi. Hurrah, now he has found new green pastures with West Bengal’s Ma Durga, who is singing, “I want to be prime minister of India…da, da, da!” But en route to Delhi she wants to win the hearts of the North-East states of India and in this who can help her better than our Goan friend Luizinho Faleiro, Soniaji’s Congressman in charge of the North-East states for several years.
This is to say Faleiro’s swan song was impressive but not so impressive. After I was going for a press conference organized by the TMC’s whizz strategist Prashant Kishor’s heavyweight I-PAC team at the upmarket Goa Marriott in Panaji on Sunday, September 26, 2021. It’s no longer news that grandpa Faleiro is now smitten with Ma Durga and along with him on the dais were other familiar Congress faces like former Calangute MLA Agnel Fernandes, party general secretary Vijai Pai, secetary Mario Pinto and general secretary Yatish Naik…all annoyed about the manner in which Congress powers-that-be play footsie with giving out tickets during elections time.
WHOEVER wishes to leave the Congress is welcome to leave! At least that is the Congress attitude, which later on Sunday had its own modest press conference at Congress House with AICC Goa desk in-charge Dinesh Rao describing Luizinho Faleiro exit from the Congress as “a blessing in disguise.” Those who are suffering in the Congress must resign. But remember the Congress will not take anyone back in victory! It has had enough of defectors.
In fact, if you’re asking me, my dears, I’m feeling equally bugged with the latest cheapskate defections politicians indulge in every time elections come around. I think I will just vote for Congress this time quite simply because as a resident of Goa I’m tired of all these melodramatic defections — the line of politicians queuing up for tickets is growing longer and longer with everyone in a hurry to enjoy the fruit of the public treasury. It would be nice to see old-fashioned loyalty return to politics with a younger lot of educated politicians like say Kanhaiya Kumar!
Surely, being in the government is something more than just living off the people’s hard-earned money? I pay my taxes every time I buy a carrot for Rs5 or a bunch of greens for Rs20 or a chocolate for Rs100! And lately we have seen politician after politician squandering the people’s hard earned money on building up their own personal infrastructure of obscene wealth.
Don’t know about you but my India and Bharatmata deserves better, much, much better than the current lot of opportunists and con artistes male or woman. Just read the profiles of most of our politicians and you’ll feel like calling them criminals instead of politicians! Perhaps with a return of the Congress something good will emerge to rescue this country and streamline it along more modern, practical times.
I’ve grown old with this county and just once before I close my eyes forever, I want my blood to feel as young as the long-suffering Luizinho Faleiro’s! As for the Trinamol Congress and Aam Aadmi parties I wish them well, although I don’t think any Goan in his or her right mind would vote for them – at best they serve as biwi No.1 or biwi No.2 to the Congress if it comes back to power anew, hopefully with a more enlightened view of along what lines Goa should develop.
Goa needs green and sustainable development and not white elephant and self-aggrandizing development which drags the people into more vicious cycles of impoverishment, depression, and very real suffering of common people when it comes to stretching a humble meal or finding a decent roof over their heads or putting their children through school so that at least they would live a qualitatively better lifestyle than they did!
ON that note it’s avjo, poite verem, selamat dating, au revoir, arrivedecci and vachun yetta here for now.
— Mme Butterfly