Sandesh Prabhudesai
16 September 1999
How to save the government while also keeping up the election promise not to have a jumbo cabinet is a question before chief minister Luizinho Faleiro, who has already expanded his cabinet this week beyond the assured limits.
The Congress government in Goa is already under fire for violating assurances given in the manifesto of the Assembly polls, held here just three months ago, not to engineer defections and restrict the cabinet size to 15 per cent of the 40-member House.
To counter the moves to topple his government by his own party colleagues, Faleiro has already admitted both the legislators of the United Goans Democratic Party and two members of the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party into the ruling party, making the Congress 25-member strong.
With money-making greed for power being the focal point of politics here, Faleiro's moves gave further rise to the dissidence within. Soon after the Lok Sabha polls held here on 5 September, threats of forming alternate government were repeated, compelling Faleiro to induct five more ministers.
While the whole state was busy praying the Lord Ganesh this week to remove all the obstacles in their life on the occasion of Ganesh Chaturthi, Faleiro decided to impose a social obstacle of jumbo cabinet on the people of Goa by expanding his six-member cabinet in the midst of the festivity.
Among the five, Suresh Parulekar and Prakash Velip belong to the United Goans Democratic Party and the MGP respectively, the parties they were elected on. Three other 'original Congressman' - Subhash Shirodkar, Somnath Juwarkar and Sanjay Bandekar - have also been rewarded with ministerial berths to avert the revolt by these 'disciplined soldiers'.
In order to neutralise few other aspirants, Faleiro has also given cabinet rank status to three other legislators - Shaikh Hassan, Luis Alex Cardoz and Victoria Fernandes, while they function as chairpersons of state-run corporations. Incidentally, all three of them had boycotted the swearing-in ceremony at the Raj Bhavan.
Manohar Parrikar, the state opposition leader belonging to the BJP, has described it as a blatant violation of the election manifesto by party president Sonia Gandhi. "The countdown of the government has begun now and it would fall soon", he predicts.
Faleiro also does not dispute that stability was the cause of expansion, though he prefers to deny the news of the brewing revolt. On the contrary, he accuses the BJP of flirting with one of his senior minister in an attempt to form the alternate government.
Though Faleiro does not give any satisfactory explanation for violating the election manifesto, which he has been repeatedly calling his Bible, Koran and Bhagwadgita, he has already dropped hints of dropping power minister Nirmala Sawant and bestowing state PCC presidentship upon her. She had rejected the offer.
Kapil Sibal, the national spokesman of the party, has also hinted at dropping one more minister, stating that the government would have only seven original Congressmen in the cabinet, making it nearly 15 per cent. The criteria does not apply to those who came from other parties and were made ministers, he claims.
While Faleiro is presently silent on the matter, it appears that he is working on a strategy of rewarding the soldiers of revolt with cabinet berths while isolating the leader, who was allegedly flirting with the BJP. Probably he is referring to health minister Francisco Sardinha, his arch political rival for the last two decades, making him the scapegoat.
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