For months before joining BJP, Lobos faced heat from Goa govt over ‘illegalities’

Lobo, a third-time MLA from Calangute, had won his first two terms from the BJP. In the previous government led by Sawant, he was minister for Ports, Rural Development and Waste Management.

Former minister in the previous BJP government Micheal Lobo and his first-time MLA wife Delilah Lobo.

Former minister in the previous BJP government Micheal Lobo and his first-time MLA wife Delilah Lobo spent eight months in the Congress party that they joined ahead of the Assembly polls in Goa on February 14. But since June, they began to feel the heat as the state Town and Country Planning Department and the Food and Drugs Administration began cracking down on properties they owned in the touristy coastal belt of Bardez taluka in North Goa.

Lobo, a third-time MLA from Calangute, had won his first two terms from the BJP. In the previous government led by Pramod Sawant, he was minister for Ports, Rural Development and Waste Management. In January, the Lobos entered the Congress with great pomp and show. Their entry was expected to be instrumental in reviving the Congress’s fortunes in the state at a time that it was down to just one MLA before the election. The BJP had then said that Lobo had left the party because he could not get a BJP election ticket for his wife. “For us it is desh pratham but for him it is patni pratham (For us its nation first, for him its wife first),” Chief Minister Pramod Sawant had said about Lobo’s exit from the BJP.

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The Congress that had appeared confident before the election results were declared on March 10, however, suffered a blow after winning only 11 seats in the 40-member House. The BJP won 20 and formed the government with the help of two Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party MLAs and three independents.

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In June, about a month before the unsuccessful attempt by Congress MLAs to defect to the BJP, Goa Town and Country Planning (TCP) minister Vishwajit Rane and Lobo, then the Leader of Opposition in the Assembly, had locked horns over alleged violations of permissions granted by the North Goa Planning and Development Authority (NGPDA). The authority had issued two show-cause notices to ‘Micheal Lobo and others’ in view of the violations in two hotels in which Lobo has stakes. Lobo, former chairman of the authority, had then said that he was being ‘targeted’.

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Tension had been simmering between Lobo and Rane for months. During the last Assembly session, Rane had said that he would expose the “illegalities” allegedly perpetrated by Lobo during his tenure as the chairman of the North Goa Planning and Development Authority (NGPDA).

In a series of tweets in June, Rane had said, “It’s also amusing to see as the report suggests, when he was in power, he had no mercy and committed illegalities such as taking away lands & selling them to people outside state. Who was responsible? How was it accomplished? What was the modus operandi? Citizens must know!”. In the same thread, he said, “LoP is one aspect, what we are doing is exposing illegalities committed. If LoP is part of the illegalities, one cannot do anything, law will take its course. Whether it is running a restaurant from an illegal premise, illegalities in ODP or misusing of power, law will catch up.”

Two properties in which Lobo is a partner – Hotel Baga Deck and Nazri Resort – had earlier got notices for illegal construction, while the FDA claimed to have found violations at Pisco by the beach in Anjuna, owned by Delilah Lobo.

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Delilah, who was the sarpanch of the Parra panchayat before she became an MLA in March, had then said they had been running the businesses for 20-25 years, much before Lobo became an MLA. “Only now that we have joined the Congress, has something gone wrong? When all these years we were in the BJP, everything was fine?”

Claiming the alleged violations were “flimsy”, like broken tiles, Lobo said: “So many ministers have also eaten at our restaurants. I asked them if there was anything wrong with our food? They said no, the food was very good…Nobody has filed any complaint against us.”

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Businessman-turned-politician Lobo is a three-time MLA from Calangute and a wealthy and influential figure in the Bardez taluka of North Goa where popular beaches such as Baga, Calangute, Candolim and Anjuna are located. This area has been a thriving tourist spot for decades, with several hotels, restaurants and places for tourist activities.

While the Lobos themselves may not have been the target, their constituencies – especially in the touristy parts – had seen increased crackdowns by the Goa Police against touts, beggars and illegal massage parlours in the months preceding their entry into the BJP on Wednesday.

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The Special Investigation Team set up by Chief Minister Pramod Sawant in June had also begun making arrests in the illegal land grab cases. Majority of these cases, according to the SIT, were located in Anjuna, Assagao, Badem, Calangute, Mapusa, Nerul, Parra and Reis Magos areas of North Goa and some were from Vasco and Margao in South Goa. Thus far, however, the Goa Police had only said that “political links” in these cases were being examined.