An on-Goan’ saga

Italy, which had a legendary reputation for changing its political guard in the span it takes to make a cup of cappuccino, could have competition from our very own Goa, the land of the sun, sea and sinking sands — or at least sands into which political reputations continue to sink like stones. Over the last 17 months, the benighted state has seen no less than three governments. And today, as the BJP prepares to form its first ever government in Goa, albeit with support from a gaggle of variegated political interests, it had better invest in some buckets of superglue, because there seems no other way to ensure that the new government does not go the way of its earlier counterparts in the fullness of time.

After all, Francisco Sardinha of the Goa People’s Congress just had to go on a holiday with his family to result in the total disintegration of the rickety coalition that he had so painstakingly put together 11 months ago. There will be few tears shed for him, seeing that he was only given the same treatment that he had so unabashedly administered to his predecessor and former Congress party colleague, Luizinho Faleiro. Sardinha had walked out with 11 members of the erstwhile Congress government, which had Faleiro as the chief minister, and went on to get himself sworn-in with support from the BJP. The Congress, of course, has been the main loser in this game of musical chairs. Today, not only has it been reduced to a mere shadow of its former self, it has had to face the mortification of seeing Ravi Naik, the leader of the Congress Legislature Party, walk away with three others and enter into a deal with the BJP. It was a move reminiscent of the one Sardinha had made last November, but in this case Naik willhave to content himself with playing second fiddle. He is to be made a deputy chief minister in the new government.

It is not just the amorality on view here that disturbs but the complete lack of accountability. It is as if the electorate, once having voted these worthies into power, don’t count anymore. The ordinary people of the state don’t know whether to laugh or to cry at the antics of their elected representatives, but they do know that ultimately it is they who will have to pay the price for these nakedly opportunistic manoeuvres, which are not just a drain on the exchequer but undermine the development and image of the state. But it seems unlikely that Goa, one of the country’s most literate states, will ever be free from these displays of wheeling and dealing, given the small size of its assembly, one in which a couple of bodies can tilt the see-saw this way or the other. Adding to this, are communitarian and regional divisions that are getting increasingly more manifest. The results of the last assembly elections clearly proved this, with the Congress and the BJP both getting an equal number of seats. Sinceordering a fresh round of polling may only yield a similar result, it looks like there is no immediate release for Goa from the grip of its cynical political guardians.