RETALIATION: In the context of Chief Minister Pramod Sawant’s assertion that Hindu temples destroyed by the Portuguese would be re-built, there are fears that the BJP may do to the Basilica in Old Goa what they did to the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya.

BY RAJAN NARAYAN

AND a few stray thoughts for yet another Saturday. For a Saturday following the week when Chief Minister Pramod Sawant threatened to rebuild temples destroyed during Portuguese rule. For a Saturday following the week when the Trinamool Congress was faced with the problem of Kon Banega Mukhiya Mantri? For a Saturday following the week when Vasco da Gama MLA Carlos Almeida alleged that Parrikar loyalists were being sidelined by BJP’s mastermind Satish Dhond and Chief Minister Pramod Sawant. For a Saturday following the week when there were objections by Opposition members of Parliament to the linking of voter ID cards to the Adhaar card. For a Saturday following the week when AAP convenor and Delhi’s Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal promised a corruption-free government in Goa.

CHURCH DEMOLITION?
AND a few stray thoughts on Chief Minister Pramod Sawant threatening to re-build temples destroyed during Portuguese rule. It may also happen that Pramod Sawant is thinking of destroying Portuguese monuments and churches allegedly built on the site of older Hindu temples in Goa. It is possible that as in the case of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya, the BJP government in Goa might seek demolition of the Basilica in Old Goa which holds the sacred relics of Catholic Goa’s patron saint St Francis Xavier.
It is clear that the BJP wants to saffronise the only secular cosmopolitan state left in the country. Chief Minister Pramod Sawant is trying to play the Hindu card on the eve of the assembly elections scheduled for February next year. To quote the CM, “In the 60th year of Liberation, the state should start rebuilding temples destroyed by the Portuguese.” Union Minister for Tourism Shripad Naik, who is historically a moderate, was also present at the function when he made the suggestion.
Pramod Sawant made his intensions clear at the meeting in Ponda during his visit to the Mangeshi temple, “I am not asking for anything else. I am just asking to strengthen our hands to reinstate Hindu Sanskriti and Mandir Sanskriti in the state.” This is absurd as Goa has as many temples as it has churches and mosques.
The Constitution of India guarantees the people freedom of worship. This automatically presumes that the Central and State government should treat places of worship of all religions equally. The threat to re-build Hindu temples destroyed by the Portuguese is particularly alarming. This is like raking up old animosities. There is no denying the fact that the Portuguese did destroy some Hindu temples. Just as the Muslims and the Hindus, too, destroyed the religious structures belonging to other communities.
But all this is history. Surely India is not an Afghanistan ruled by fanatic fundamentalist groups like the Taliban? Indeed, even the demolition of the Babri Masjid by the BJP was a criminal act, as there is no proof that the Ram Mandir existed on the site. It is clear that the CM has the backing of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah. Clearly the latest statements by Pramod Sawant are an attempt to polarise Goa along communal lines. If the BJP is re-elected to power, it will be the end of secular, democratic, cosmopolitan Goa.

KAUN BANEGA MUKHIYA MANTRI?
AND a few stray thoughts on Trinamool Congress being faced with the problem of Kaun Banega Mukhiya Mantri? Reginaldo Lourenco, the Curtorim MLA, who had been given a ticket to contest on the Congress ticket, has defected to the Trinamool Congress. The Congress had spared no efforts to appease Reginaldo Lourenco, to give him a sense of belonging to the party; he was appointed as the working president along with senior Congress leader and former power minister, Alexio Sequeira. Trinamool Congress’ I-PAC team had approached the Congressmen earlier to appeal to them to join the Trinamool Congress. Reginaldo was persuaded not to defect personally by Congress key leader Rahul Gandhi which is why it is all the more shocking the manner in which he suddenly jumped and decided to join the TMC. In fact, he formally joined the TMC on Tuesday, December 21, 2021 in Kolkatta.
We suspect that the TMC must have tempted Reginaldo with the offer of chief ministership of Goa, if the party comes to power in the assembly elections coming up. Reginaldo is aware that there is no chance for him to be chief minister even if the Congress gets a majority, as former chief minister and Opposition leader Digambar Kamat has already staked his claim to the post.
The defection and entry of Reginaldo Lourenco to the TMC is, however, bound to create major problems, if the party actually gets a majority in the state. The TMC already has four Congress defectors who will stake first claim to be chief minister of Goa. Even though Luizinho Faleiro has been given a Rajya Sabha seat, he is still interested in contesting the assembly elections from his historical constituency of Navelim. Luizinho Faleiro has not given up his ambition of becoming the chief minister of Goa again.
Indeed, he has been claiming that in 2017, he was betrayed by the Congress and prevented from staking his claim to the chief minister’s post. The TMC has also admitted the Dhavlikar brothers. Sudin Dhavlikar is bound to stake his claim to the chief minister’s post, if the TMC gets a majority!
Sudin Dhavlikar has even put a ribbon advertisement below the masthead of local dailies with a photograph of himself with Mamata-didi declaring, “Only we can defeat BJP.” The TMC has also taken on strongman Churchill Alemao and his daughter Valanka Alemao, who not only approached the local TMC office bearers but even met Mamata Banerjee in Kolkatta. Churchill has resigned from the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) which he claims he has merged with the TMC.
So much so we think the biggest challenge that the TMC will face if by some miracle it gets a majority will be – Kaun Banega Mukhya Mantri? If any one of the four claimants is denied the post, chances they will leave TMC and join some other party. There may be an action replay of what happened in 2017 when the BJP grabbed the chief ministership from the Congress with its alleged midnight temptations of money power.

SATISH DHOND POWER
AND a few stray thoughts on Vasco MLA Carlos Almeida alleging that Parrikar loyalists are being sidelined by BJP’s master mind Satish Dhond and Chief Minister Pramod Sawant. As part of the saffronisation of Goa, the defacto boss of the BJP, Satish Dhond, seems to be determined to get rid of Parrikar loyalists from the party.
Carlos Almeida has apparently been told that he will not be given a BJP ticket. Even Utpal Parrikar, the son of late Manohar Parrikar, has been refused a ticket to contest the Panaji assembly seat which was held by his father. The confidant of Manohar Parrikar, Siddharth Kunkolienkar, who was given the ticket when it felt vacant when Parrikar resigned and went to Delhi, is also nowhere in the picture.
When Narendra Modi visited Goa on Liberation Day, all the posters strung up down the Dona Paula bypass road leading to the Dr Shyama Prasad Mukherjee Stadium, were of Narendra Modi with Babush Monserrate. Even at the unveiling of the statue of Manohar Parrikar at his memorial Samadhi at Miramar beach, it was Babush Monserrate who stole the lime-light. Utpal Parrikar was either not invited or had decided to boycott the ceremony.
Perhaps Satish Dhond is taking revenge on Manohar Parrikar. It was Manohar Parrikar who sent him away out of Goa for he had started interfering with the working of the government when he was the general secretary. Satish Dhond came back when Pramod Sawant was appointed the chief minister and from all accounts, he is the person who is actually calling the shots in the Goa government.
Satish Dhond is a hard-core RSS karyakarta. Dhond was opposed to Parrikar giving tickets to members of the Catholic minority community to contest seats on the Lotus symbol. Incidentally, it was an experiment which was very successful in that the majority of the candidates chosen by Manohar Parrikar won the election. Even in the 2017 election when the BJP could get only 13 seats, the majority of the winners were Catholics. Of the 26 seats that the BJP has in the legislative assembly as many as ten are from the minority community.
Any marginalisation of the minorities may spell the doom of the BJP in Goa. It has been the experience of every party, including the BJP that no party can form the government in Goa without the support of the minority communities. This is probably why Satish Dhond is insisting that the ticket for Panaji should go to Babush Monserrate and not Utpal Parrikar — Babush holds the key to all the five seats of Tiswadi as he has done in the past.
VOTER ID-ADHAAR LINK
AND a few stray thoughts on the objections raised by Opposition members in Parliament to the linking of voter ID cards with Adhaar cards. On Tuesday, December 21, Parliament passed the Electoral Reform Bill which provides for linking voters’ identity card to the Adhaar ecosystem. The Opposition fears that this will destroy the privacy of the electoral process. If the voters ID is linked to Adhaar, it is very easy to find out who voted for which party.
This will have serious ramifications as the party which is voted to power could take revenge against those who did not vote for them. While the Electoral Reform Bill got a smooth sailing in the Lok Sabha, it ran into a lot of trouble in the Rajya Sabha. Indeed, the Trinamool Congress floor leader Derek O’Brien was suspended from the Rajya Sabha for hurling the rule book at the chairman of the Rajya Sabha. The total number of Rajya Sabha members who have been suspended for protesting against the Electoral Reform Bill has gone up to 13. In the Rajya Sabha, the Opposition sought a division.
For those who may not be familiar with parliamentary procedures, normally bills are passed on the basis of a voice vote. In controversial cases, the Opposition can demand a vote on the acceptance or rejection of the bill which is called the division. The chairperson of the Rajya Sabha refused the demand for division or even the reference of the bill to a parliamentary committee. With its huge majority, the BJP can get any bill it wants passed in the Lok Sabha. However, in the Rajya Sabha, it does not have the numbers to get its bills passed. There is every likelihood that the Opposition will now move the Supreme Court against the linking of voter ID card to Adhaar card.

WARRING RANES
AND a last stray thoughts on the war between senior and junior Rane. Contrary to claims by the BJP, Pratapsingh Raoji Rane, who has been with the Congress for more than 50 years, has declared that he will contest the elections again on the Congress ticket from Poriem. Unfortunately for him, his rebel son Vishwajit Rane, who joined the BJP earlier, has already announced that he is contesting the election from Poriem. So far there was no conflict as senior Rane represented the Poriem constituency and junior Rane has represented Valpoi.
The confusion was created by senior Rane when on his 57th marriage anniversary he announced that his blessings were with the BJP. But apparently as in the case of many other Congress leaders, Rahul Gandhi has made them change their mind. Now Pratapsingh Raoji Rane, who has been the chief minister of Goa as many as seven times, has declared that he would not change his mind. His son, Vishwajit Rane is demanding that his father should retire gracefully and give the Poriem seat to him. It would appear that the senior Congressman continues to remain faithful to the party even though many of the younger party leaders and MLAs have been defecting to other parties. But it is not been a one-way traffic only. Many leaders like Elvis Gomes, who is expected to contest against Babush Monserrate in Panaji, have joined the Congress party. It is expected that Carlos Almeida, who has been virtually thrown out of the BJP, will also join the Congress party.