PANAJI: Goa’s politicians are sparing nothing, not even the dreaded threat of the global pandemic COVID-19, to latch on for a fight with rivals.
Take the case of Goan politics’ enfant terrible of yesteryears - Francisco alias Mickky Pacheco.
The former minister flew down to Goa on the Air India flight on which the 65-year-old woman from Bengaluru who tested positive on Tuesday had also travelled on the intervening night of March 8-9.
When teams of the Health Ministry knocked on his door Wednesday morning, Pacheco, true to his flamboyant and aggressive reputation, drove them away and sought to accuse the Bharatiya Janata Party government of political motives to quarantine him so he could not canvas against the ruling party in the ongoing Zilla Panchayat elections.
Worse still, Pacheco, throwing all precautions recommended to fight the public health threat of the dreaded pandemic to the winds, reportedly went ahead and addressed election related public meetings on Wednesday evening in the ZP constituencies under the Nuvem and Benaulim assembly segments.
Elsewhere up north in Pernem, Deputy Chief Minister Manohar (Babu) Ajgaonkar, stirred up a controversy when he flexed his political muscle to detain at a police station two well-meaning citizens who requested him to stop campaigning and gather crowds as they pointed out it was detrimental to public health in view of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Incensed at being questioned by the duo, Ajgaonkar is said to have incited a furore from his supporters and eventually instructed the police to accost the two youth whom the Pernem police detained overnight on Tuesday-Wednesday.
Worse still, Chief Minister Pramod Sawant himself came under severe criticism earlier last week for himself violating his own appeal to fellow politicians and to political parties to avoid large public meetings as part of the onging ZP electioneering.
Not to be left behind, the Congress too sought to drag the government’s campaign against COVID-19 into the ambit of its political wrangling with rivals.
On Wednesday, Goa Pradesh Congress Committee president, Girish Chodankar, reiterated his call for the sacking of Health Minister Vishwajit Rane, accusing the latter of opportunistically converting the anti-COVID-19 effort of his ministry for self-gain by roping in pharmaceutical companies.
