It's been an amusing seven days on the political front here in Goa. While Ali Baba and his 40 thieves engaged in a tu-tu-mein-mein for the big prize in politics -- a position in the state cabinet -- somebody in the Department of Information, decided to pre-pone 'All Fools Day' from April 1 to February 26!
At about 4 pm on Friday the 26th of February, text messages came streaming in on mobile sets informing journos of a 'swearing-in ceremony' at the Raj Bhavan that evening, which eventually however was not to be! The source of these messages was the Department of Information, an arm of the state administration that's not as well known for its efficiency as it is for its intra-office politics. Interestingly, minutes after these messages, the journos were addressed by Chief Minister Digambar Kamat himself, who waxed eloquent over how good the Union budget presented that day in Parliament by Pranab Mukherjee was and blah, blah, blah....but there was not a word spoken on the so called 'swearing-in'. Obviously this prompted the journos to specifically question the CM, and to their surprise, the CM was surprised, at least he said so. 'Where's the vacancy to swear-in anybody' was the CM's terse reply. And, even as he had said this, another message came through from the Information Department informing journos that transport to the Raj Bhavan had been arranged from near the Information Department premises at 6 pm to transport the media persons for the ceremony. Now this had the CM really red-faced, who however managed to explain off the episode with a mere shrug of his shoulders. 'There is going to be no swearing-in' he kept insisting, and indeed there wasn't. So, Madkaikar, Narvekar and co had to wait for the real 'Fools Day' this year, or perhaps will it be next year?
Pawar-play
What the events of last Friday demonstrated, meanwhile, was the political muscle of Union Agriculture Minister, Sharad Pawar. Apparently, Diggu and the Congress bigwigs had made up their mind to revert to 'status-quo ante' when Sudhin Dhavlikar and Atanasio (Babush) Monserrate walked into the cabinet at the expense of Madkaikar and Narvekar respectively. The High Command too is said to have given its green signal to the move. But then Dhavlikar launched himself into survival mode and triggered Speaker Pratapsing Rane into action. Rane Sr confronted Diggu over his move but that hadn't worked much. What did, however, was Dhavlikar's knocking the doors at Krishi Bhavan in Delhi. Apparently, Pawar was upset that Diggu had taken the decision to cut down the 'allies' share in the government here in Goa unilaterally, and swung into action to scuttle the swearing-in. So, in the 15 minutes between 4 pm and 4.15 pm, Diggu was flooded with calls from Delhi instructing him not to go ahead with the swearing-in.
Post-script
Tumkam sanje anik voddli khobor assa', this is how an aide of CM Diggu, himself a former editor greeted one of the journos who had arrived at the official Altinho residence of the Chief Minister to cover whatever he had to say on the Union budget. Obviously, this lanky former editor was referring to the planned cabinet reshuffle, and inadvertently, confirming that the biggest fool was not at the edifice near the Azad Maidan which houses the Department of Information, but actually at the CM's bungalow in Altinho!
Just talk!
It's been almost three weeks since Ravi Shetgaonkar, the taxi driver from Morjim, died from injuries he sustained in the brawl with a Russian businessman. Yet, there has been no sign of any action from any quarter to aid his grieving family. It's shocking that despite all the pro-Goan brouhaha raised by the Morjimkars, politicians, all and sundry in the aftermath of Ravi's death, his family is yet to receive any aid, either in cash or kind from anybody. Not a single naya paisa has reached his unemployed widow or his two children, one of whom is hearing and speech impaired, and a student of the Sanjay School.
So much for our Goenkarponn. Just talk!
Having said that, the villagers of Morjim need to be complimented. At the gram sabha held last Sunday (February 21), they decided to open a bank account for the family by raising donations. Would be prudent for the villagers to open this account at a bank in Porvorim from where the legal brains of the Russian Consulate functions from.
‘Flying coffins’ grounded
Finally, the Indian Air Force (IAF) has grounded its fleet of nearly 100 MIG-27 aircrafts which had for long come to be touted 'flying coffins' for the number of pilots the machine has cost the force. Incidentally, this was the same aircraft that claimed the life of Wing Cdr Oswald de Abreu who died when his aircraft's engine caught fire soon after take off. The decision to ground the Russian-made aircraft came about 10 days after Abreu's ill-fated flight and barely days before one of IAF's biggest air power demo which was ultimately held at Pokhran minus the MIG-27s last Sunday.
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