Tags:
Journalism of Courage
“You will know where I am at the right time,” Michael Lobo, 46, would frequently say in the months preceding the February Assembly elections. Soon after, he quit the BJP, in whose government he was Minister for Ports, Science and Technology, Rural Development and Waste Management, and joined the Congress, winning another term from Calangute.
Months into the term of the new Assembly, Lobo’s remark then – “you will know where I am at the right time” – continues to hold true amid intense speculation over the last few days of him moving back to the BJP camp along with senior Congress leader Digambar Kamat and other Congress MLAs. The Congress had also removed Lobo from the post of leader of the legislature party in the 40-member Assembly.
On Monday, however, Lobo and the others attended the Assembly proceedings and took his seat among his colleagues from the Congress. But it’s not over yet. The Congress has sought the disqualification of Kamat and Lobo as MLAs, with state unit president Amit Patkar and other leaders urging the Assembly Speaker to change seating arrangements in the House in accordance with the CLP resolution removing Lobo as CLP leader.
Earlier this year, when Lobo severed his 15-year-old ties with the BJP and joined the Congress with wife Delilah and his supporters, it was seen as a shot in the arm for a crumbling Congress that had seen all but one of its MLAs leaving to join other parties or backing out of the election.
Before he joined the Congress, Lobo was a minister in the previous BJP government led by Chief Minister Pramod Sawant but was often at odds with the government over statements he made in the press.
A political heavyweight in Bardez, North Goa, Lobo was credited with the Congress’s win in four seats in the taluka, including Siolim, from where his wife Delilah won for the first time. Three-time MLA from the tourist hub of Calangute, Lobo, a businessman with interests in several hotels and restaurants, however, has been at the receiving end of the government’s recent check on “illegalities”.
It was this that AICC’s Goa in-charge Dinesh Gundu Rao referred to at the late Sunday press conference, when he said about Lobo, “He has been working in the background with the BJP to save his own skin. Because of so many cases against him and so many problems he was facing, he has compromised himself.”
Tension has been simmering between Lobo and Town and Country Planning (TCP) Minister Vishwajit Rane for months. Properties co-owned by the Lobos have been issued notices by the Food and Drug Authority too. During the ongoing 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).
When he joined the Congress in January, Lobo had said, “We have joined in the interest of Goa. The way forward for the people of Goa is only the Congress party… When I was deputy Speaker, I had taken a very strong stand. Defection has to end. You cannot switch sides. You have to resign,” he had said.
Rao too had kind words for Lobo: “A very strong, powerful grass-root leader is joining the Congress party. He is connected to the common people, he works for them. He has established himself as a big leader not only in his constituency but all over the(Bardez) taluka….A big force has entered the Congress party.” On Sunday, however, Rao called Lobo a “traitor” and a “backstabber”.
Clearly, six months is a long time for Lobo, the Congress and Goa.
