The swearing-in of Chief Minister Pramod Sawant and eight of his cabinet minister on March 28 at Shyama Prasad Mukherjee stadium, Taleigao cost the treasury over Rs 5.5 crore, documents sourced under RTI have revealed. The BJP justifies the spending by maintaining that the big mandate it received at the elections needed a swearing-in of that scale. By any standards, spending Rs 5.5 crore for an event of less than five hours is outrageous, and, in some measure, overshadows the budget of the 8-day International Film Festival.
Gone are the days when swearing-ins were conducted in the Raj Bhavan in the presence of a distinguished audience that included prominent names from the opposition parties. Political parties across the spectrum have lately turned these inductions into a show of power, glitz, glamour and overwhelming festivity blowing up crores of public money. In Goa, Sawant threw open the event inviting people to the venue and asking them to be a part of his government. Such grand outreaches are not restricted to only Goa but have been largely in all States that have gone into elections, including Uttar Pradesh where the BJP put up a massive ceremony at Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ikana stadium in Lucknow for Yogi Adityanath. And such lavish ceremonies are not restricted to the BJP governments alone. Parties like AAP even had themed celebrations raising the glamour quotient to another level.
Elections, campaigns and the entire political space may have moved to a different level over time with the focus shifting to grandeur and optics, it beats the logic for States like Goa who are struggling with finances and its economy and are consistently making a pitch for judiciously managing funds, restructuring loans and going in for austerity measures. Lest we forget, recently, the power ministry has marginally hiked power tariffs to complete underground cabling in the State and upgrade infrastructure. The fiscal strain is showing, and against that, such a spend is completely irrational.
A horrible precedent has been set with parties setting a new template for a modern-day swearing-in by moving it away from Raj Bhavan and turning it into a festive show. It would be only prudent for the parties in power to take responsibility and ownership of the expenditure incurred, rather than burdening the treasury.
While BJP’s central command took decisions including those on government formation, leadership and even swearing-in, Sawant understandably had a very limited choice of breaking away from the other BJP States that were moving in synchronisation after the results. Stretch one's legs according to the coverlet, so goes the popular saying, and it holds so true for Goa at this critical time.
The need of the hour is to shun hypocrisy on finances and acknowledge the hard ground realities that the State is facing. Goa cannot follow in the footsteps of bigger States, on the contrary, we need to be grounded at all times and make genuine efforts towards austerity till there is some sunshine again.
