The government needed to huddle together after the Panjim constituency’s smart citizens decided to vote out the BJP in the by-poll. Was the BJP more concerned with attending the swearing-in tamasha of Prime Minister Narander Modi in Delhi which it attended to the extent of its musterroll while giving the Statehood Day celebrations here a miss? Even Vijai Sardesai who goes blue in the face talking about how Goa Forward Party is for Goemkarpann was missing.

June 4, 2019
Lionel Messias

Should we be both dismayed and overwhelmed by the way the ‘Code of conduct’ was used to telling effect by the government to explain that its hands were tied behind its back, so to speak, on that much abused word ‘development’? While it looked on helpless as Goa went through its usual pangs, as if none of the pain ever existed! And for god’s sakes, where was the ‘Code of conduct’ when the BJP went about its fake news best over the “missing girl” to embarrass the Congress candidate Atanasio Monserrate in Panjim. As dirty tricks ago, this was the dirtiest. It turned out the many thousands who voted him in didn’t succumb to the BJP’s below the belt code of conduct.

But to the point, the Herald on May 28 had a five-column article titled ‘Finally, it’s business as usual in govt administration’ and gave an itemized version of how the government got back to work after a long holiday. The most amusing of which were: (1) ‘Sports minister and deputy chief minister want all National Games infra related expedited and places July end deadline’. (2) ‘Law minister also holds meeting to see how the registrar process at sub-registrar offices can be smoothened’.

Amusing, because the National Games which no Goan taxpayer wants, has become a waiting game in Goa after having been postponed from 2016.

Goemkarponn, really Vijai!

Amusing because the sub-registrar should instead be investigated on how an Arunkumar Lamani could change his name to Arun Ramesh Naik, Renuka Shivaji Tasildar to Reeta Fernandes, Varsha Virkumar Sawant to Maria Helena Intercessao de Gracias, Mallappa Masmardi to Mark Mascarhenas, Hanma Durgappa Rajput to Hanma Durgappa Naik and Sonu Sharma to Francis Xavier D’Souza. Seriously, you can abuse us ethnic Goans and we are used to it, but please at least get your spellings right, Rita and not Reeta, and a Sawant to Intercessao etc etc. For more details please ask the Curtorim MLA Alexio Reginaldo Lourenco of the Congress (who else?) who exposed this racket.

BJP’s Goemkarponn

Again your BJP montris whose lifestyle is paid for by your tax bucks decided they must cancel the consultation meeting scheduled for May 28 to discuss the road map for the Smart City project. The Imagine Panjim Smart City Development Limited had fixed the meeting with citizens to give them their version of it before sending it to the Smart City Mission of the central government. Chief Minister Pramod Sawant was too busy is the official version. Fact is the BJP government needed to huddle together after the Panjim constituency’s smart citizens decided to vote out the BJP in the by-poll.

In other words, Panjim’s citizens are not Goemkarponn or don’t have Goemkarponn because they voted against the BJP. Was the BJP more concerned with attending the swearing-in tamasha of Prime Minister Narander Modi in Delhi which it attended to the extent of its musterroll while giving the Statehood Day celebrations here a miss? Even Vijai Sardesai who goes blue in the face talking about how Goa Forward Party is for Goemkarpann was missing.

On the other hand, BJP’s Goemkarponn are government workers. Sample this. The Economic Development Corporation of Goa has just invented a personal loan scheme for all state/central government workers, corporations, public sector undertakings (PSU), regular teachers/employees of schools, colleges and government aided schools. Here’s the fun part, the loan is for buying vehicles and not for the purposes you thought as you read the above. It gets weird. The loans will be secured by personal guarantees of the government worker who takes the loan and a guarantor who will also be a government worker. Imagine these lazy bones getting a Rs 5,00,000 loan on your tax money and the guarantor is another government babu. The loan can be combined with the husband/wife of a government worker. Bottom line: Expect some government workers at least to make hay while the sun shines. And when I last checked, the EDC was a financial institution charged with the task of helping Goa’s economic growth, not to help government workers buy vehicles.

And just as the central government drew a line on subsidies for cars bought by officers and jawans of the armed forces through its Canteen Department Service!

The laziest class of all

So, if you can’t find all this amusing while you look at all your tax deductions, then I can’t help you, except for this. Manohar Parrikar himself said sometime in 2017 “I will not tolerate any indiscipline or lethargy at work and corruption will be contained.” Parrikar as we all know was a motormouth whom the media chased. There was and still is not a single medical scheme, for example, that government workers cannot avail off. Just one example, while you pay in thousands your hospital bills (after and even if you have an insurance policy) Parrikar if I am not mistaken, allowed government workers to choose any medical insurance scheme other than the Goa government’s own Deen Dayal Swasthua Seva Yojana scheme. And this was his very own brainchild!