THE BJP IS NO ALTERNATIVE TO THE CONGRESS.

THE BJP IS NO ALTERNATIVE TO THE CONGRESS

By Aires Rodrigues

Politics and elections today are no longer a noble mission. It has become a business enterprise, in fact a form of private partnership where candidates invest to reap high dividends. The lust and crave to field your own family and friends, as close partners, has taken politics to a very new low.

MLA’s are elected to debate and legislate good laws for the State. That should have been their pivotal and only role. Unfortunately MLA’s have hijacked the day to day administration of the State. The bureaucracy has succumbed to political pressure by surrendering all their independence and are reduced to mere stooges of the politicians.

For the ensuing Assembly elections political parties have fielded some good and worthy candidates while there are some outstanding independent candidates like Rohan Khaunte in Porvorim, Avertano Furtado in Navelim and Tulio De Souza in Saligao who should be given an opportunity to prove their legislative skills. The people of Goa should ensure that those directly or indirectly connected with illegal mining should not be even in the zone of consideration. There couldn’t be a bigger crime than damaging Mother Nature just to amass those filthy crores.

The BJP is mistrusted and there may be reasons for it. The manner in which their own North Goa MP Mr. Sripad Naik was humiliated leaves much to ponder. If a senior leader like Sripad Naik was treated so shabbily and tossed away what hope is there for the ordinary workers.

If Sripad Naik could not get justice, no one within the local BJP will. As Opposition Leader, Mr. Manohar Parrikar has neither been aggressive nor consistent. Issues that should have been raised and highlighted by the Opposition have had to be pursued by ordinary citizens. Democratic functioning is a key to the prosperity and well being of any political party. Manohar Parrikar’s dictatorial, one who claims “I know everything”, which attitude has not changed nor will.

Over the last few years I had felt that the BJP may be an alternative to govern Goa. But after having been myself a witness of the party’s misconduct I can no longer vouch that.

At the Corporation of City of Panaji elections, last year, the BJP and its leader Manohar Parrikar in particular aggressively campaigned against me. Mr. Parrikar did not even care to heed the advice and request of many of his BJP MLA’s and other leaders who had requested him to support me.

I was expecting the BJP to back me, at least as a gesture for the open support I had given them over the years. In a way the CCP election was an opportunity for me to have a first hand experience of BJP’s true colors and its non-secular credentials.

Both the Congress and BJP are weighed down with their glaring misdeeds. So the way forward may be for Goans to select and elect the best candidate from those in the fray. If we can elect a batch of 40 good legislators, Goa may be able to move out from the current rot if finds itself submerged in. As political parties and their alliances are only concerned about themselves, it may be a good idea to vote for individuals for a change and give the political parties a break on 3rdMarch. Not voting on party lines but for the finest candidate may be the way to go.

(the writer can be contacted on 9822684372 or airesrodrigues@yahoo.com)

DEFEAT THE CORRUPT ILLEGAL MINING POLITICIANS.

In Afghanistan there are folk tales which say that every inch of its land down below even below their houses contain gold, meaning minerals. In reality what these folk tales tell is genuinely true. An Afghani friend of mine told me once that his grand mother told him to take care of their house because "Ingrezi Lokh" meaning British colonialists will destroy it to extract gold meaning rich minerals from under their house. USA is well aware of this fact and for this reason it makes its presence felt there more firmly. To make its presence firm in Afghanistan USA is trying to fortify its stay there to prevent others from taking control of the rich minerals there. In order to hold its grip there USA is spending millions of dollars there and even losing innumerable lives of US citizens. This US does to protect its own interest.

In Goa our land is ful of minerals. Earlier these minerals were extracted from the mountains in Sircaim, Sanquelimg, Sanguem and many other places but later on and now this type of mineral extraction reached to non-mountainious places also and tomorrow it will reach to our cities and villages as well because almost every place in Goa you can get minerals. In 1958 a team of expert geologists from Germany were brought by Sesa Goa to study the presence of mineral ores in Goa and they said the existing Mines will fetch the mineral ores for another hundred years while other places in Goa will fetch lot of minerals if extraction is done there.

We have seen how illegal mining is being done in Goa by our politicians in non mountainuous places thereby destrying dwelling places and arable land of Goans. Very shortly this type of illegal mining will reach to our villages where the powerful mining lobby will even destroy our houses to extract mineral ores from below our homes also. While this is going on we will not be able to stop them because they will have strong political power at their disposal to defy our resistance. All the corrupt Goan politicians are involved in this illegal mining in Goa, their illegal activites are well noted by Shah Commission but because of political pressure from Congress High Command headed by Italian Sonia Gandhi, this report is not released. This was done to protect all the Congress corrupt politicians of Goa to allow them to contest the forthcming election unhindered.

When Portuguese were forced out of Goa in December 1961 they left hundred percent Goa intact but out of its hundred percent now what is left is only 25 percent while the remaining 75 percent is already looted by our Goan politicians. In order to save this rmaining 25 percent of Goa we will in the coming election have to defeat all the corrupt politicians otherwise with their political clout under their disposal they will commit all the 'Dadagiri" to control Goa as they want of course in a Hitlerian manner and we will have no power to stop them.

In view of what I said above, in the coming election we all should be assertive of our rights to throw out all the corrupt politicians especially the Congressmen who are involved in illegal mining in Goa. By doing illegal mining these corrupt congressmen amassing huge wealth for them and for their family members only. The Goan wealth meant for the larger number of Goan populace is devoured by a few Goan corrupt politicans.

A. Veronica Fernandes,
Kuwait.