The 'Bulldozer' is seemingly competing with 'Jai Shri Ram' to be the new war cry of members and supporters of the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party, what with its dispensations ruling at the Centre, in several States and even municipal corporations, extra-judicially driving the gory machines to reduce to rubble homes and small businesses built over lifetimes and sometimes several lifetimes by selectively targeted communities.
It has got due recognition in the cyberworld, with a whole Wikipedia page dedicated to describing this 'Bulldozer politics' in India, which is perceived to be extra-judicially targeting homes and small businesses of communities who are not traditionally supporters of the right-wing party. It claims that the 'bulldozer' word entered the Indian political lexicon in 2017 when Yogi Adityanath became Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, who used the bulldozer to demolish buildings and properties belonging to alleged criminals.
But way before Adityanath and Uttar Pradesh could showcase it, it was in fact Goa where the saffron party's "Bulldozer Politics" had first raised its ugly head way back in the early years of this millenium, courtesy former chief minister, the late Manohar Parrikar.
In peak monsoon of 2004, 10 bulldozers razed over a thousand tiled or tin-roofed structures in a locale which partly housed Goa's only acknowledged, albeit unofficially, Red Light district of Baina.
Margao's respected cardiologist Dr Francisco Colaco and builder-food entrepreneur Datta Naik, will surely bear witness as the duo had then faced the wrath of the Powers when they attempted to stand before the marauding machines at Baina in 2004, just as Brinda Karat did earlier last month in Delhi.
The Colaco-Naik duo faced vindictive FDA raids at their respective hospital and factory but the dispensation soon backtracked following a backlash from socially and politically influential quarters.
Baina, wasn't the only locale in Goa which witnessed the menacing bulldozers steered by the now gone but not forgotten IIT-ian politician in that year. Panaji's DB Marg was another along which several facades of mud-cement-mortar, considered vestiges of the Colonial era, were razed with bulldozers and replaced with insipid, modern buildings ahead of the International Film Festival of India (IFFI) editions hosted for the first time in Goa in November-December of 2004.
The 'Uzzo-uzzo' gang is unlikely to take it lightly, this Yogi's theft of credit for a political phenomenon via Wikipedia, when it should rightfully belong to our very own 'Bhai'. Wikipedians, please note.
Michael learns to farm, Rane loves to hunt
Strictly speaking farming should hurt no one.
But for Leader of Opposition Michael Lobo, the man who has managed to bury the already concretised village of Calangute with a few more layers of concrete, the very intent of farming appears to have earned him and his wife Delilah an FIR.
According to the Lobo formula, farming essentially requires chopping a significant amount of trees and digging the earth with excavators. The digging, Lobo claims, was to clear a hole for a water pond in his farm. Sure, maybe he had plans to farm some catfish or thigur too.
The ongoing war between Lobo and TCP Minister Vishwajit Rane appears to be scaling mammoth proportions.
For Rane, Michael Lobo appears to have been relegated to the category of the Royal Bengal tiger, considering the manner in which Sattari satrap appears to be going after both; Lobo with an FIR and the tiger with a domicile rider.
Rane and Lobo were colleagues in the erstwhile cabinet. And judging by the intensity with which the two have got into a catfight, Goa's green may well have enough time to dig out domicile certificates for Goan tigers which seemed to have skipped Rane's -- also a self confessed wildlife photographer -- zoom lens.
Defeat indigestible for some ex-MLAs
Power is intoxicating and addicting some recently defeated politicians are increasingly displaying.
Elections to the Goa Legislative Assembly may have been done and dusted and those who have lost have made way for the newly elected representatives to carry the baton forward.
But at least two ex-MLAs have been repeatedly exhibiting symptoms of being sore losers and incapable of digesting their defeats -- Glenn Souza Ticlo and Churchill Alemao.
Ticlo it seems is refusing to let go and moves around in Aldona constituency with visible spring in his steps and twinkle in his eyes. How he does it with monotonous regularity is strange, even to us.
Tailed by his 'chelas' in the ruling dispensation, Ticlo merrily goes about inaugurating some public works or laying foundation stones for others, which were ostensibly launched or sanctioned during his tenure as MLA, before the Congress' Carlos Alvares Ferreira ended his double-innings.
It’s quite a sight to see the ex-MLA basking in the limelight despite losing the seat, making hay whether the sun shines or not.
In fact, the confidence of the ex-MLA is giving quite a complex to the reigning MLA of the constituency.
Benaulim is seeing similar 'sore loser' symptoms from members of the camp belonging to Churchill Alemao, the political 'Goliath' defeated by the 'David' of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Capt Venzy Viegas.
On Wednesday, the ex-MLA's nephew, Warren, descended at the site where the contractor was commencing the work to lay a hot-mix carpet on the Margao-Colva road in the presence of Capt Viegas. The nephew did not waste the opportunity to give sound-bytes and claim that the new MLA was taking credit for work that had got sanctioned during his uncle's tenure.
Batting on the pitch, Capt Viegas on the other hand says he is unfazed and is only discharging the responsibility given to him by the people who through the ballot had also ended the innings of his predecessor.
Some politicians just cannot confine themselves to watch from the pavilion or head to the commentary box.
Journos throwing their weight around?
Some journos think they are a special tribe who can lord over everyone and even seek special privileges.
A section of such tribe from Mapusa feel they can do what they want, the law be damned.
These ‘pack’ of journalists are seen moving in and around the town and peripheral areas on their two-wheelers without wearing the mandatory helmets.
Accosted, by chance, by a diligent traffic cop, the latter gets a mouthful: 'Don’t you know I am a reporter? How dare you stop me?’
Interestingly, while several motorists get stopped and issued challans for disobeying traffic rules, when it comes to this pack of journos, the cops go weak in their knees and lose their voice.
Even at the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic, these same pack of journos hardly faced the wrath of the law for moving around sans the mandatory masks, while others were either lathi-charged, slapped a fine or faced humiliation at the hands of the men-in-uniform.
(Compiled by Ashley do Rosario with inputs from Agnelo Pereira and Mayabhushan Nagvenkar)
