Even as you get your hands on this edition and start reading this column on Friday morning, your smartphones will be ringing with messages coming in with trends, leads and results of the panchayat election.
But, first of all, kudos to Goa's village folk for the outstanding 78.7% turnout. A whopping 6.26 lakh Goans made themselves count by casting their votes at the election which will choose representatives of panchayats which control a significant number of services and amenities that affect daily lives.
Switch over to the other side of the fence -- the politicians and the political parties. Granted that the panchayat elections aren't fought on party lines. They never were. But the politicians and political parties have a knack to poke their fingers through surrogates: husbands, wives, sons, daughters, brothers, sisters and in-laws.
This time though, the political parties have stayed somewhat aloof, perhaps out of fatigue from the bitterly fought Assembly elections just about six months ago. Individual political satraps, many of who fell by the wayside in the Assembly election, have thrown their hats in the ring though, via wives and daughters.
Friday will tell who will have the last laugh -- the voter or the politician. Over to the results. And whatever happens, eventually as has always been the case, the politicians and their parties will spring into action to win over the allegiance of the winners.
Cash for votes galore
From Rs 500 to Rs 5000, that was the amount given for a vote in many wards in the recent panchayat elections.
Some say that in rare cases, where there was a very close contest and where there was personal pride at stake, the amount even went up to Rs 10,000.
The lucky ones who got the money say that they have not seen this amount of money being distributed for a single vote even at the Assembly elections.
Which begs the question: What type of treasure is hidden in the panchayats for candidates to cough up such huge amounts of money?
Blame it on the teachers (WITH SAWANT PIC)
The sting of the criticism in the recently concluded monsoon session of the Goa legislative assembly over the below par performance of Goa's students in Classes III-V and Classes VIII-X, especially in the mathematics and science subjects, has seemingly hit Chief Minister Pramod Sawant where it hurts most.
Why else would he publicly ricochet the criticism on to the teaching community?
Sawant knows that in the perception of the general public, the buck stops with him. He is the CM and also holds the education portfolio.
But the other day, at a conference of heads of schools, Sawant squarely passed on the blame to teachers, acrimoniously asking the headmasters 'who teaches the students' 'who assesses the students'?
Days after that episode meanwhile, school teachers were deployed for panchayat election duty, disrupting their academic work and in many cases, scheduled examinations. Who then will teach the students, Mr Chief Minister?
Lobo trying to save face? (WITH LOBO PIC)
After 'Operation Lotus' having failed with the magic number of 8 eluding the dissenters, Calangute MLA Michael Lobo, a day ago, told a local news platform that some people were spreading rumours about him quitting the Congress party.
Does he want us to believe that he and his group of three including his better half were not part of the dissident group that was reportedly life-jackets on, ready to jump ship? And that he was not working in cahoots with the former leader of opposition to cobble up a group of eight within the CLP as Dinesh Gundu Rao publicly stated?
The whole of Goa knows how the Calangute strongman was pushed to the wall after TCP minister Vishwajeet Rane launched the investigations into the so-called 'golmaal’ in the Parra and Arpora-Nagao ODPs.
Wilting under the pressure, Lobo’s only way out was to join the ruling party. Just that it ended like the proverbial slip between the cup and the lip.
But hold on. The game isn't over yet. The grapevine is agog with stories that soon after the panchayat elections results are out, the game is expected to re-start, albeit in a new avtaar.
BJP chief gives a hint of things to come (with TANAVADE PIC)
The ever smiling Sadanand Tanavde, the State BJP President is a nice guy and at times does not mind speaking his mind to his favourites within the media. So when a curious journo sought to know whether the plan of some Congress MLAs joining the BJP has been shelved, pat came his reply: Tem challuch asa (It is ongoing). Soglle satta asa thoi odta (Everyone wants to be in favour of power).
So there you are. If anyone has the faintest idea that things have settled down and the Congress MLAs will be back to their good old days of taking on the government, think again.
Will Cong ever plug the defection bug?
Did we hear it right or was it a slip of the tongues? Five Congress MLAs and GPCC president Amit Patkar spoke in one tone that all eleven MLAs are united when the reporters questioned the absence of the other six MLAs after they had submitted a memorandum to the Governor on various issues affecting the State.
From the recent happenings when there was an attempt by some Congress MLAs to defect into the BJP followed by poor turnout of the legislators at protests organised by the party, the insistence by the Congress that all eleven MLAs are united is simply indigestible.
In fact, one of the MLAs even disclosed to the reporters, off the record of course, that the other MLAs have already got one foot in the BJP and the only thing that is stopping them is that they cannot garner the numbers for a 2/3rd majority.
Now the question that arises is for how long will the Congress MLAs wanting to defect have to wait to jump ship and be a part of the ruling dispensation? And, for how long Patkar will have to face the uncomfortable questions about legislators playing truant and failing to turn up at party events?
Quite a daunting task for the principal Opposition party to plug the defection bug.
(Compiled by Ashley do Rosario with inputs from Agnelo Pereira and Manuel Vaz)
