Pramod Acharya
I am writing this piece a bit late because a fair critical analysis of Manohar Parrikar’s legacy was needed and my intention was to avoid the initial 12 days after his passing to do so. Also, by now the fan boys and the absolute detractors of the former CM have laid down their keyboards and one can hope for a balanced perspective on the man.
The passing away of Manohar Parrikar will obviously have a gigantic effect on Goa’s socio political landscape. He was the first IITian Chief Minister this nation witnessed and left an indelible mark on administration and governing discourse. He was also probably the first BJP politician in the country who preferred to portray himself as a “soft hindutva” icon extending an olive branch to all communities in the state when his party was doing quite the contrary in the rest of the country. He practiced politics in a state firmly rooted in secular, liberal ethos and more than his ideology, this region specific realignment, was perhaps his necessity. Would Parrikar have been the same liberal politician if he had to profess his politics in Uttar Pradesh?
Power changes everybody. It changed him too. When he got an opportunity to invade the corridors of power in Goa with a swift move by toppling a government supported by his own party, he portrayed himself as an ambitious, but righteous man on a mission to clean the state’s polity marred in corruption and instability. He infused fresh blood and idealism with his personal integrity when people had lost faith in their political class. The guarded and educated middle class decided to place their bets on him. He became their hero.
He preferred to keep all the hard liner voices within the BJP far away from the borders of Goa. He positioned himself as the right of the center politician than a far right one. This is Goa BJP; things happen differently here, he used to often say.
Yet, he was the first and most vociferous to propose a polarising figure like Narandra Modi as the prime ministerial candidate of the BJP for 2014. On the eve of BJP’s national executive in Goa, he proposed Modi as BJP’s best option for the top job. I met him the next day in the lobby of Goa Mariott where the meet was held. “How was it? Some things needed to be said and the timing was perfect”, he told me referring to his NaMo pitch.
He was an exceptional strategist, rather a political engineer who could weave an odd dispensation by combining some of the most incoherent voices in polity. He tried such tactics during his first stint as CM but failed miserably. His government was toppled and those men on whom he relied too much after importing them from other parties deserted him.
He tried to mount a political assault on them in the assembly election of 2007 but fell short. Congress-NCP combination came back to power when general perception was hugely in his favor. His over confidence and under estimation of some seasoned politicians from the Congress pushed him back in the chair of leader of opposition. He attempted to topple the Digambar Kamat led government within 50 days of its formation. The move failed. He learnt his lesson and decided to wait and build a sustained campaign against the ruling alliance over the next four years.
BJP single-handedly won majority in Goa assembly in 2012. The next morning, I went to meet him. “You waited for more than 7 years for this moment. Finally you did it,” I said congratulating him. “Initially I was impatient. I shouldn’t have attempted the toppling bid. Then I realized that the state is turning into a pressure cooker. This dispensation is ruining everything. I decided to wait till this pressure burst and then I began, inside and outside the assembly,” he told me.
The same night, I received a call from a veteran Congress leader. “It will be very difficult to dislodge him for the next 15 years if he lives up to even half of his promises,” he told me.
The next five years were a lesson in how to build a great campaign, come to power and then blow it all up. His over populism tripled the state debt. He disastrously failed on all of his major policy promises for which he was precisely given such a mandate. His dispensation was in tailspin when Modi invited him to join his cabinet as defense minister of India. The downward slide continued and BJP lost the 2017 assembly election. Yet, he made another reckless move and formed the government with totally disparaging alliance partners against public mandate. Each of his allies had won the election on a staunch anti-BJP plank. He succeeded in retaining power but lost on his comrades and cadre.
Once again, he was unable to complete his term as CM, a stark characteristic of all his four tenures. This time however, life betrayed him. His party is in tatters in the state and he has bowed out in most uncharacteristic manner. The man, who envisioned International Film Festival in Goa and carried out largest infrastructural development in the state since Goa attained statehood, should have known better. During his last days, clippings of two of my interviews conducted with him went viral. The first was from 2012 where he said he wouldn’t prefer to be in active politics after that term in office. Negating himself he formed an anti-mandate government in 2017. The second was shot before his by-election in 2017. When I reminded him about the 2012 interview, he altered and said a politician should continue as long as he is fit. However, the renegade continued. He was a man of contrasts; the man who gave Goa hope and then snatched it away.
