Reshuffle, recycle, rinse and repeat
Chief Minister's mention of a cabinet reshuffle sets a cat among the pigeons, an IAS officer's ego trip and more in this edition your weekly news roundup from Goa.
It’s been a week when the rains returned to Goa and are expected to continue for the next few days, but the sound of the rain wasn’t the only thing sending people in Goa and ministers in particular scurrying for cover.
A ministerial reshuffle on the cards
Chief Minister Pramod Sawant set the cat among the pigeons when at the start of the week in an interview with Prudent Media he confirmed that plans were afoot for a cabinet reshuffle in the state.
Talk of a cabinet reshuffle has been going on for a while now given that the government is nearing the middle of its term and that several of those who joined from the Congress are yet to be accommodated. While the rumours died down for a bit ahead of the monsoon session of the Goa Legislative Assembly, after the Chief Minister said there would be no changes ahead of the session, his latest words suggesting that one was ‘needed’, has meant it is now firmly back on the agenda.
So, what does the rumour mill suggest is going to happen? Two ministers are likely to be dropped with Tivim MLA and Fisheries minister Nilkanth Halarnkar and Sports minister Govind Gaude the current leading favourites. There are other non performing ministers too, as identified by the BJP high command, but they might escape owing to various political and caste considerations.
And who’s to be inducted in their place? Well for one, it is no secret that there are several contenders: Michael Lobo, Sankalp Amonkar to name a few. But then the cards are not stacked in their favour. For example, if the Chief Minister is to drop a tribal face in the form of Govind Gaude, politics dictates that he would have to induct a tribal face in his stead -- that would automatically mean that Speaker Ramesh Tawadkar -- who is still fresh from many a spat with Govind Gaude-- will take his place.
Remember that these are just rumours, and unlike during the Congress rule when everything is an open secret well before it was officially announced and aspiring ministers made no bones about openly speaking about their ambitions, with the BJP things are usually under wraps until they are officially announced.
Who will take Nilkanth’s place then, were he to be dropped? The rumour mill suggests that Digambar Kamat, famous for claiming that he joined the BJP unconditionally and without any expectation is tipped to be inducted in the cabinet out of seniority. But what portfolios will Kamat be given? Surely he can’t be happy with the portfolios currently held by Nilkanth -- Fisheries, Animal Husbandry, etc and will have to be given one ‘hefty’ portfolio. There are several options for this. One suggests that the PWD portfolio, currently with Chief Minister Pramod Sawant after Nilesh Cabral made way for Aleixo Sequeira could be given to Kamat -- but that would depend on the Chief Minister and the BJP high command willing to let it go.
The other option would be to take a ‘hefty’ portfolio from one of the existing ministers.
Which makes me wonder why…
… Vishwajit Rane has had a busy week.
Health and TCP Minister Vishwajit Rane has been especially active this week. For one he addressed back-to-back press conferences on three consecutive days -- all three of which appeared to strike a conciliatory tone on all the contentious issues facing his departments.
On the first day he addressed the media after a meeting of the Town and Country Planning Board and, among other things, announced that he was contemplating making further changes to the Town and Country Planning Amendment Act to increase the fine for hill cutting to Rs 25-lakh and to introduce a ban on plotting of orchard properties unless they convert to settlement first: An attempt to suggest that he too was against hill cutting and destruction of the hills. At the same time there also was a claim that the withdrawn TCP bill would make a comeback with the necessary changes.
The second day he addressed a press conference after meeting with a delegation of protesting resident doctors and promised them to better safety, security and facilities especially those on the night shift, after they struck work in the wake of the rape and murder of a second year resident doctor at the government run RG Kar Medical College in Kolkata.
On the third day, he took a step further with yet another press conference, this time on the health department and announced he was no longer pursuing a long standing dream of bringing in a private player to run a medical college at the South Goa District Hospital. Remember that it was just in March this year that the state cabinet approved a proposal for setting up a private medical college at the South Goa District Hospital, a move that was strongly opposed, especially by the Goa Forward Party.
It is a big climbdown from a man, for whom privatisation has been a buzzword ever since he first became health minister between 2007 under Digambar Kamat. Many of you will have not forgotten how, when he was health minister in the Congress government between 2007-12, he delayed the opening of the new Mapusa district hospital for years in the hope of bringing a private player on board before finally relenting just ahead of the polls.
So, what are we to make of these back to back announcements? A tactical retreat? Vishwajit on the backfoot? Or should we do what we always do and take these announcements with a pinch of salt?
Here’s the reality: Despite a seeming change of tone, nothing has really changed on the ground. The hills that have been converted continue to be converted, the fields, ponds and water bodies are still marked as settlement and a 25-lakh fine seems paltry especially given it will now be treated merely as a processing fee. Instead, as Swapnesh Sherlekar argues in this video, if the government was sincere, they would penalise with real deterrence measures.
So, even though there is no real change, why does it seem that there is a change in Rane’s attitude? The answer lies in the first part of this newsletter as well as in last week’s.
Ego hurt, constable suspended
Amidst the din of loud music reverberating through the village of Anjuna over the last weekend, came the news that a constable attached to the has been suspended. While the official line has been that the suspension was “purely on administrative grounds” this report by the Times of India suggests otherwise.
According to the report, the constable on duty was given his marching orders after he failed to provide for a senior IAS officer in Goa, who was on an off-duty trip to the Pernem Goa coastal belt to visit a friend who s/he was visiting over dinner.
Caught in a traffic jam, he requested the local police station to send an escort vehicle, to help clear up the traffic before him, which the hapless soul manning the lines at the station refused, giving an excuse that the area falls outside his jurisdiction.
Ego hurt, the officer ordered the suspension of the constable for not bending over backwards to facilitate an out of turn request. Who is the officer concerned, we can’t say for sure, but word that filtered out indicates that it is an officer of a secretary level or higher.
Taxi strike takes off
And finally, before I leave you there are two other happenings worth mentioning -- the first is the ongoing taxi strike by local cabbies, operating outside the Mopa airport who have been protesting to demand for -- among other things -- reduction in parking and airport usage charges, increased wait times and -- the contentious issue of removing the counter granted to Goa Miles, the state sanctioned cab aggregator, at the airport exit.
Since this is an ongoing issue, I will refrain from offering my comments for now, but suffice to say that both the Travel and Tourism Association of Goa and the Goa Chamber of Commerce and Industry have both issued statements backing the government urging the state not to back down on the issue of app based taxis. The protest continues while the government has sought time till Monday to further discuss the issue.
Brisbane Roar heard in Goa
Secondly, if you haven’t been paying attention it will have been easy to miss that some globally important football teams are in the state at the moment for the revived version of the Bhausaheb Bandodkar Memorial Football Tournament. The star among them is the Brisbane Roar football club from Australia, who has brought a full strength team to take part in the tournament that began over the weekend at the Fatorda Stadium. There’s also a top tier team from Argentina expected to arrive in the state. It’s been a while since teams of international calibre have played competitive matches in Goa, so it’s definitely worth checking out.
And finally, do check out this heartwarming story from The Goan about the first Goan lady to be a bus driver in the UK, who has been driving buses for the past 17 years and was recently felicitated by the Global Goan Association in London earlier this month.
Until next week then, tchau!
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