Sandesh Prabhudesai
12 September 1999
Goa is different, even when it comes to assaults on Christian priests. The accused in such cases is …. hold your breath …. the Congress. And the ones to protest at the top of their voices is the Bharatiya Janata Party !!!
It happened twice, incidentally one after another. One was directly related to the ruling Congress party and the second one to the government - ultimately the Congress.
Altogether six priests were mercilessly beaten up on the night of 6 September, the next day of the Lok Sabha elections, in the Navelim constituency (part of Christian-dominated Salcete taluka) of none other than chief minister Luizinho Faleiro. Luckily, the assailant was also a Christian.
"Thank God, he was not a Hindu", quipped Francisco Sardinha, the health minister, representing the neighbouring Curtorim constituency. His health department is presently investigating whether the assailant was actually mentally unsound, as claimed by the chief minister and the police.
The first one to condemn was the BJP, who has alleged hand of Churchill Alemao, the Congress minister, while also demanding CBI inquiry into it stating that the police department could be biased.
Dr Wilfred de Souza, the self-styled Catholic leader and local president of the Nationalist Congress Party, even went to the extent of demanding Faleiro's resignation, to pave way for impartial inquiry.
Alemao, who was trapped by the opposition, has obviously denied his involvement into the assault. But the BJP and the NCP recall Alemao's public threats to the priests in Navelim, because some of these priests were openly campaigning against his brother Joaquim, the ruling party candidate for the Lok Sabha polls from South Goa.
At the bureaucratic level, the police has been now instructed to conduct a high level investigation not only in the incident but even into the relevant and connected dimensions, which actually involves the Congress leaders.
While the news reports of assault on the six priests had just hit the headlines, another incident took place in port town of Vasco, where the police beat up two priests along with the villagers demonstrating outside the court premises against the allegedly pollutant Meta Strips project.
Faleiro's government had to again clarify that the attack on the priests was not intentional, though the anger against the Congress party is spreading like wild fire in the coastal belt of Salcete and Mormugao taluka, where most of the 30 per cent Goan Christians are concentrated.
Most of the Christians here have been traditional voters of the Congress, on the basis of which it has been coming to power since 1980 as it adds to lakhs of Hindus and Muslims also voting for the ruling party.
Whether one likes it or not, several priests have been involving themselves in political campaigns, sometimes even by using the altars of churches and chapels, but hinting at their favourite parties indirectly.
"Many priests are my friends. What is wrong in it ?", asks Dr de Souza, who is considered to be very close to the Church in political circles here. His splitting away from the Congress last year has created problems for the ruling party here, due to which the Congress has become target of the minorities.
The BJP, which has been otherwise the 'natural' target when such attacks on minorities take place, has fully exploited both these incidents in attempt to prove their 'secular' credentials while also pushing the Congress against the wall as far as the Goan Christian vote bank is concerned.
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