Govind Gaude sent packing
For the BJP, Govind Gaude turned out to be more of a cost and less of a benefit, this and more in this week's edition
Welcome to yet another edition of Gerard’s Gazette, a weekly newsletter in which I attempt to break down the events of the week gone by and offer a bit of context, as well as a dose of news you may have missed and news behind the news.
If this is your first time here, thank you for signing up, and I hope you stick around!
There’s a bunch of things that have happened since we last met. A Bengaluru man killed his girlfriend and left her to rot in the forests of Dharbandora suspecting her to be cheating on him, the state unveiled its heritage policy, which, among other things promises to help those who own heritage houses maintain them and reuse them for commercial purposes, while the BoAt CEO said on TV that Indians were not respected in Goa back in the 2000s. Not sure why his opinion matters, but it is what it is.
Meanwhile for those of you for whom travelling to London or from London was on your agenda, Air India has suspended the Goa-London Gatwick direct flight at least until July as it seeks to review the safety of its aging fleet of Dreamliner aircraft that were servicing the route. As you may be aware, the flight that crashed in Ahmedabad, was due to return from London to Mopa the same evening on its return trip and from there fly to Delhi. Those Goans who were due to fly back to Goa from London, must’ve been thanking their stars and counting their blessings for the near miss.
But attention in Goa was primarily on one thing alone.
Govind Gaude sent packing
This was a week in which Govind Gaude’s tenure as a minister came to an end. The minister of Art and Culture, Sports and Youth Affairs and Rural Development claims he learnt of his dismissal via an alert from the Directorate of Information and Publicity and that he wasn’t aware of the decision, when almost everyone in the media was.
In truth, Gaude would have known it was coming. The tide had turned against him and, as I discussed a few weeks ago, it was only a question of when, rather than whether he was going to be dropped.
In fact, the moment a recording of the conversation between him and the bureaucrat heading the Tribal Affairs Department was made public, the writing was on the wall. The conversation could only have from either of the two phones and since it wasn’t Gaude who would record and leak it, it means it came from the bureaucrat, who in turn would not release it to the media, unless instructed to do so by someone high up in the ruling dispensation who was building a case against Gaude.
Come to think of it, I can’t remember the last time a minister was dropped purely because he wasn’t wanted anymore rather than on account of political compulsions. Nilesh Cabral was asked to resign, but that was to make way for Aleixo Sequeira. Prior to that Pandurang Madkaikar and Francisco D’Souza were dropped on account of health reasons, while the Dhavalikar brothers were dropped after they decided to walk away from their alliance with the BJP during the tenure of Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar.
There was Mickky Pacheo who was dropped after he went underground to evade arrest for alleged abetment to suicide of Nadia Joelle Torrado, more than 15 years ago.
Even further back, Digambar Kamat dropped Dayanand Narvekar who was then his finance minister effectively ending his political career.
That said, as is often the case, the focus this week quickly turned to life after Govind Gaude.
Reactions to Gaude’s dismissal came thick and fast. The opposition’s take on Gaude’s dismissal can be broadly classified into two main groups.
On one side was the Congress, the AAP and Goa Forward, who all effectively said that Gaude was dropped on account of him speaking out against corruption prevalent in the government and that this was a government that didn’t want their misdeeds exposed and would rather shoot the messenger than tackle the actual corruption.
On the other side was the Revolutionary Goans Party, who said that Gaude deserved to be dropped and that power had gone to his head, he was turned uncaring and arrogant and as such, the ruling BJP was justified in dropping him.
Both these arguments need not be mutually exclusive. They can both be true at the same time. It is true that Gaude had turned arrogant and uncaring as evidenced from his loud and vociferous rebuttals, everytime he was cornered. When the Charles Correa Foundation raised grievances about the quality of work being done in the name of renovating Kala Academy, he responded with “Who is Charles Correa Foundation?”. Essentially saying: Who are they to question me?
When artistes raised concerns regarding the quality of work at the Kala Academy, he said they had taken ‘supari’ to finish him and was similarly dismissive of them.
His attitude in dealing with the director of the Tribal Affairs Department also became widely known no sooner a telephonic conversation in which he was heard abusing the director was leaked to the public.
At the same time it is also true that he had hinted at corruption in the functioning of the Tribal Affairs Department, a department that is helmed by the Chief Minister, which is what served to trigger his dismissal.
But before we go on to make a hero out of him, it would be worth our while to remember that he wasn’t really a crusader against corruption and his outburst against corruption could well be a result of him already being aware that he was going to go under and deciding that he was going to go under, he might as well take someone with him.
But in it all, what caught my attention the most was the RGP’s reaction to his ouster. Like I said, the RGP wasn’t wrong in saying that Gaude had turned arrogant and uncaring, but why is it that the RGP sounded like they were things that the BJP wanted to say but couldn't do so publicly?
In the debate over whether the RGP is secretly funded by the BJP as a means to split the opposition vote, it is seemingly innocuous things that offer clues into what’s really happening behind the scenes.
You could of course argue that the person in the video is Vishwesh Naik, the RGP’s Priol candidate, who would be caught between having to target both Gaude and the government and that he would inevitably make one sound good if he targets the other. But then, when the reaction makes no mention of how the BJP is at fault, then at least according to me, there’s more than what meets the eye.
But why did the BJP sack Gaude?
This is a question that many may find themselves asking. Was it because he was corrupt and arrogant? That can’t be true because if that was the criteria, a whole bunch of them would be sitting at home.
Was it because he spoke out against corruption in his own government and party while himself being a beneficiary of the aforementioned corruption? That can’t be true either because if that was the benchmark, then how come Atanasio Monserrate, who was a BJP MLA faced no action when he accused then BJP minister Deepak Pauskar of corruption in PWD recruitment in the run up to the 2022 assembly polls?
Monserrate was on record to state that each job in the PWD department back then was sold for Rs 25-30 lakh with the total scam exceeding 70 crore. Monserrate also alleged that the health minister Vishwajit Rane had manhandled the Covid crisis leading to shortage of beds and also hinted at corruption in procurements. No action was taken against him. Instead, Pauskar was denied a ticket and there was no further action.
If I were to hazard a guess, I believe that Gaude was removed because he offered the party no benefit, while being a political liability.
With or without Gaude, the BJP can win the Priol seat that Gaude represents. If not, they can always give it to their alliance partner the MGP, who will win the seat. (The seat has only been ever won by the BJP or the MGP. The Congress or like minded parties never stood a chance.) At the same time, Gaude was drawing bad publicity. From claiming that Shah Jahan didn’t call for tenders when he was building the Taj Mahal, to defend his department’s spending 55 crore to ‘renovate’ the Kala Academy only to leave it in worse shape than it previously was, to allegations of corruption in the organising the National Games and to picking fights with artistes who were criticizing Kala Academy, Gaude failed to show up when it came to the BJP’s internal cost benefit analysis report. And out of the window he went.
That’s all I have for you this week. Make sure you comment or write in, should you have something, anything to say.
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Until next week, then. Tchau!