PANAJI
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Goa is placing its eggs in Chief Minister Pramod Sawant's basket in an apparent bid to fill the personality cult void left in the saffron party post the Manohar Parrikar era.
Life-size cut-outs of Sawant wishing him on his fiftieth birthday dotted highways, State roads, vantage points and even interior streets across the State on Sunday itself, in a branding and visibility blitzkrieg never seen unleashed before by the BJP in Goa since Parrikar's 2019 passing.
On Monday, the State government, and more visibly the ruling party has lined up several socio-political interventional programmes via its organisational wings such as its Mahila and Youth wings, including the Sawant government's own favourite public outreach intervention -- Swayampurna Goa Abhiyan.
On the record, though, the BJP's leader Damu Naik claimed that the party decided to commemorate the Chief Minister's fiftieth birthday in a 'unique way': social service programmes and events to resolve issues of the local people through the 'swayampurna mitras' from the administration.
"Dr Pramod Sawant himself will be a 'swayampurna mitra' in one of the villages where he will meet people, listen to their grievances and queries and seek to resolve them with administrative intervention," Naik said while briefing the media on Monday's events to mark the chief mnister's 50th birthday.
After paying obeisance to Lairai Devi in Shirgao, where the zatra is being held coincidentally on Monday, Sawant will proceed to the Saligao panchayat as part of the 'Swayampurna Goa Abhiyan' programme. It will also be held in several other panchayats and municipal bodies across Goa where ministers and government officers designated as 'swayam mitras' will engage with the public to resolve local issues.
The BJP yuva morcha has also planned programmes to hand over four homes built under the government schemes for the poor, uniforms to 10,000 school students besides distributing books.
After four years of the passing of unarguably its tallest Goa leader, Manohar Parrikar, the BJP appears to have zeroed in on a successor to fill his vacant boots and Sawant isn't shying away from the mantle. Is he up to it, is a question, time will answer.
