After stoking it, CM distances from row
Stung perhaps by the backlash to the controversy he himself stoked with his "it's time to wipe out signs of Portuguese legacy" exhortation at a June 6 event in Betul, Chief Minister Pramod Sawant has since refused to make any further comments or be drawn into a debate.
"People do not like it when I speak on the injustices meted out to Goans by the Portuguese, even when this is proven and documented," Sawant has publicly said in his last comments on the issue, subsequently.
Sawant's dabbling with the potentially divisive issue dates back to his first budget speech after he returned to power following the 2022 Assembly elections when he sprung a surprise by setting aside a Rs 20-crore allocation for a scheme to rebuild temples and sites destroyed during the Portuguese rule.
“At many places in Goa, we find several temples in a dilapidated and neglected condition. During the Portuguese regime, there was a systematic effort to destroy these cultural centres. Considering tourism development, we have made a provision of Rs 20 crore for reconstruction and restoration of these temples and sites,” Sawant had said in that budget speech.
It's another matter that the committee of academics appointed by the Sawant government's Archaeology Department to identify such sites is yet to come up with any conclusive report for the scheme to take off. The panel has got a deadline extended but the government has repeated the Rs 20-crore allocation for the scheme in the current year's budget.
"Shivaji Maharaj and his son Sambhaji should be given credit for protecting the Hindu culture," the Chief Minister had claimed at the Betul event, linking either unintentionally or by design the emerging pro-Shivaji narrative being driven sporadically in the State by an obscure NGO.
The statue fiasco
Less than a week later, Sawant's administration was left grappling with a law and order situation at Calangute over the panchayat's attempted move to get an illegally installed statue of the Maratha king removed.
For now, the administration and the police has managed to buy time and sweep the controversy under the carpet by coercing the Calangute panchayat and sarpanch Joseph Sequeira, to back down.
For how long it will remain tucked under the carpet is a question, many are uncertain of. More likely, they say, that just like a similar attempt to install a Shivaji statue in the picturesque Sao Mathias (Divar) island village ended up in court, the case of Calangute too will trace a path for resolution to the courts.
