Ministerial changes and new appointments, including those of a CM, always have an interesting aspect: new faces and new backgrounds, as has been seen in the BJP’s CM announcements in MP, Rajasthan and Orissa in recent times. However, the Goa government’s reshuffle, bringing in a political elder and another BJP loyalist, seems to suggest that the party is tired, on the one hand, and has no new blood to infuse into its cadre here. The choice of cabinet minister also suggests that all is not well within the party, and now that the elections are less than two years away, it is trying to recover lost ground and get its act together. The truth is that the state’s tourism is suffering, the cabbies are an unhappy lot, environmental concerns are mounting by the day, and illegal land is being regularised with an eye on the polls. The fact that the state has India’s highest unemployment rate is unacceptable. But the current dispensation has no solutions. What a shame!
