The Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar who has been vehemently defending the BJP government's decision to include six Goa's rivers in the schedule of the National Waterways Act, 2016, has made several claims along the way.
While the Chief Minister has insisted that power and control will remain with the Goa Government's Captain of Ports Department, the proof of the pudding will be in the eating.
The scope and extent of the projects that seek to be undertaken in these rivers will ultimately decide whether and to what extent traditional communities that live along and rely upon Goa's rivers will be displaced. And this will be known only once the government lays bare the projects it seeks to undertake along these rivers.
However, what is very concerning is the manner in which Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar, on the event of Goa's Liberation Day, argued that there was very little Goa could do about an Act passed by Parliament and further even went on to question the competence of the Goa Legislative Assembly to even debate an Act passed by the Parliament.
Manohar Parrikar's assertion that "there is little the state can do about an Act passed by Parliament" is misleading. While Parrikar may be correct in asserting that the Goa Government cannot overrule an Act passed by Parliament, the Legislative Assembly can definitely convey its sentiments through a resolution or a similar mechanism by which the stand of the state government can be conveyed in no uncertain terms. Moreover, there is nothing to stop the Goa Legislative Assembly from debating Acts of Parliament without questioning the constitutional authority of Parliament and its powers.
The limiting factor here clearly seems to be the willingness of the present BJP-led state government, for obvious reasons, to counter the present BJP-led central government.
In doing so, the Chief Minister has sought to surrender Goa's right to have an opinion that is contrary to that of Parliament and the central government. Coming as it did on the eve of Goa's 56th Liberation Day has left several question marks.
Parrikar's assertions have also skirted the role of the previous BJP-led government in giving its consent to the parliamentary committee to include six of Goa's rivers to be included as national waterways. Circumstances surrounding the decision to grant consent suggest that the then Goa government did not apply its mind to the matter and the consequences entailed but simply went ahead with the decision presuming it to be in Goa's best interest.
Such a blind consent by the earlier government, combined with Parrikar's assertions that Goa is helpless to the will of the central government, does not bode well for Goa's powers and rights as a state as enshrined in the Constitution. It certainly does not appear that we have a government that will fight for the rights of the state, even if we wanted it to.
