Sandesh Prabhudesai
10 Aug 1999
Goa always writes unique chapters in India’s political history.
This time it is the Congress minister proposed to be dropped from the cabinet within two
months and the opposition is protesting against it.
Nirmala Sawant, the power minister, was summoned to Delhi by AICC
president Sonia Gandhi to discuss the issue while the whole state seems to be agitated
over it. The proposal is to make her the Goa PCC president, the post she was holding at
one time, before getting elected for the first time.
Not only a few Congress ministers and legislators but community
organisations, newspapers and even the opposition parties like the BJP and the Nationalist
Congress Party have put their weight behind her. Dr Wilfred de Souza, who recently joined
the NCP, was the first one to protest.
Chief minister Luizinho Faleiro, while asking Sawant to step down, is
trying to portray that it is a sincere attempt to keep the party together. To calm down
the greedy aspirants for ministerial berths, he plans to accommodate a few dissidents in
the six-member cabinet, which is not allowed to be expanded beyond eight or nine by Mrs
Gandhi.
Meeting the high command last week, Faleiro had also proposed to drop
health minister Francisco Sardinha, the former MP, and allot him the Lok Sabha seat from
South Goa. Incidentally, Sardinha and Sawant are the only two Congress loyalists in the
cabinet who have not defected, unlike others including Faleiro. He wants to now
accommodate a few, who have threatened to revolt.
Reacting sharply against Faleiro’s proposal, Gomantak Times criticises
the Congress policy which "encourages greed and discourages loyalty; which punishes
commitment and rewards opportunism. Are these the kind of values Sonia Gandhi wishes to
promote ?", asks the reputed local daily.
But Manohar Parrikar, the state opposition leader, suspects a different
game altogether, making the power minister the sacrificial goat to please around 50 power
guzzling ferro alloy units in the state. Sawant had recently clamped down upon the
guzzlers, cutting a few connections after nabbing them red handed.
Precisely this is the reason why Sawant is gaining support from all
possible corners, since the state is starving for power while the ferro alloy units are
consuming most of the available electricity illegally. The year-long ban imposed by the
high court for new connections is thus still not lifted.
Everyone is awaiting for what transpires in Delhi while Sawant has
agreed to step down if Mrs Gandhi tells her to do so. But this may just be an excuse to
lit the fire of revolt, which has been brewing within the party from the day Faleiro was
sworn in on 9 June. Hardly anybody is happy with his allegedly autocratic functioning.
The chief minister has already come under fire for stripping off the
state chief secretary completely even by taking over his executive powers to write
confidential reports of the bureaucrats, while its legal sanctity is being now questioned.
The shadow of instability is brightly visible as he has already
announced to form a coalition government with Ramakant Khalap-led Maharashtrawadi Gomantak
Party despite ‘enjoying’ support of 23 Congress legislators and one independent
in the 40-member House.
