Why, Oh why Mr Parrikar?

An ailing king, an unforgivable state of governance, a pack of Brutus’ daggers drawn, a queen monarch, the joke is not just on us... We have become the joke

| OCTOBER 31, 2018, 03:05 AM IST

Dr Oscar Rebelo


Whichever political ideology you belong to, there is one thing you must admit.   

We are in the heart and centre of the most macabre, eerie and punch drunk Kafkaesque theatre of our lives.   

An ailing king, a democratically and unconstitutionally unforgivable state of governance, a pack of Brutus’, daggers drawn and exposed, a queen monarch, the Grande Dame of Dona Paula sweeping everything under the carpet and then calling this “Swacch Bharat, Nitoll Goem.”   

The joke is not just on us.   

We have become the joke.   

And the rest of the world has stopped laughing at us.   

They simply couldn’t freaking care !!!  

...Goa has become that passe.   

But it is Manohar Parrikar and only Manohar Parrikar who has brought us to this curve of the bend... a road to absolute and complete perdition.   

Cancer is such a horrific disease and now our biggest stealth killer that one never knows who is in its cross-hairs next.   

And it’s an excruciatingly painful and emotionally-devastating blow to the individual, his/ her family and friends.   

So, the vitriolic hate filled posts against Manohar Parrikar on social media doesn’t just target him,  

..but demoralises and doubly devastates every cancer survivor and patient who reads this.   

If politicians sink to the depths of depravity in their quest of power,   

..it doesn’t mean that we need to forego our basic decency and humanity.   

Having said this, there are some ghastly decisions taken by Manohar Parrikar and his close coterie, which have shoved every democratic principle down a sink hole.   

Clinging on 

Despite such a grave diagnosis, Manohar Parrikar continues to do what is normally a physically and mentally challenging job, not ceding an inch of power to anyone.   

What this translates is there is absolutely no second-rung leader that has been groomed to grow under the Kenyan tree...  

This is not confidence but extreme diffidence of the banyan tree itself.  

Legacy legislation

Despite his passion and deliverance on infrastructure for Goa’s future, there is not a single hard boiled legislation that Manohar Parrikar has espoused successfully...  

Not on air, not on environment, not on education and sustainable economy, not on tourism or mining...Everything happened ad hoc and that which was politically expedient!!   

Congressisation of the BJP

This must count as the most horrifying nightmare for the BJP cadre...  

If Prof Velingkar weans away a chunk of the BJP and MGP cadre in the future, the prime reason will be this... not Konkani, Marathi or Hindu-Christian...  

Truly, it takes years to build your house of cards,   

And one moment of reckless huffing and puffing to bring it crashing down.   

Not squaring up

If from the word go, Manohar 

Parrikar had to square up with the people of Goa in early February, and accepted his truth gracefully and laid out his plans for Goa’s future (not the BJP future) in a televised address, Goa and Goans may have understood despite their mandate being stolen from them.   

Political enemies

The final, and in my opinion, fatal error of Manohar Parrikar’s leadership from 2012 onwards was to dump and persecute his well-wishers when he was in the Opposition (read Prof Velingkar, Claude Alvares and countless others) and whole-heartedly embrace his political enemies who cleverly used him to seize power as he merrily used them to do the same.   

Come 31 October, as that comical IPB meeting gets underway, Shakespeare will be having a keen eye on Dona Paula from the heavens above.   

Many Brutus’, One morally-defeated Caesar !  

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