When Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar announced that panchayat elections would be held on June 25, there was an air of dissatisfaction. The reason: June 24, on which day the feast of San Joao is held, would be a dry day and members of the minority community would have to celebrate this festival without easy access to liquor. What followed was angst and heartburn. But what was curious was that no one accused the Chief Minister or the government of deliberately targeting the minority community. Perhaps, everyone assumed that since the BJP has more minority MLAs, they would take care of the problem and they did.
On Monday Panchayat Minister Mauvin Godinho said elections would be held on June 17. It was like a breath of fresh air to the minority community which can now look forward to a very wet Sao Joao fest. We are told that this decision has the blessings of the chief minister, who has been rather quite since he took charge of a motley crowd of MLAs. The strength of Goa is that it takes almost everything in its stride and the fact that this matter was resolved without friction is proof of this positive approach.
However, the San Joao festival is not the only contentious issue in the forthcoming elections. What is difficult to understand is why the government chose to hold panchayat elections after the end of the term which ends on May 27? Godinho said that the process of delimitation and reservation of wards would be completed by May 2 or 3. Couldn’t this have been done earlier?
Delimitation and reservation are sensitive issues and governments have used it to cut short political careers of aspiring candidates at the grassroot level. Panchayats, zilla panchayats and municipalities have a system of reservation for women and selected caste groups. The idea is to ensure that these grassroot bodies are representative of the populations they serve. There is a method to the process, but it always sparks suspicion, especially in the minds of aspirants who are axed. This process commenced sometime in November under the assumption that elections would be held on May 21. Which means the Directorate of Panchayats was geared up to hold polls before the expiry of the term. If the state machinery was ready to hold po
