The greatest enemies of
Goa and Goans were Dayananda Bandodcar and his daughter Shashikala Kakodcar who
fought vigorously to liquidate Goa and Goans.
They both used their political and official might to further their fight
to victory but true Goans fought against their sinister move to protect Goa
from getting into extinction. This was during the Opinion Poll when as a young
school boy I was kept occupied even by neglecting my studies and other
necessities in campaigning and canvassing for TWO LEAVES a symbol of
anti-merger in order to oppose their move to merge Goa with Maharastra.
May her soul rest in
peace and may the heavenly God forgive her for fighting against Goa, Goans and
Konkani. She gave lot of sleepless
nights to genuine Goans to devise ways and means to counter her moves against
the interest of Goa. Our elders also faced lot of inconveniences to defeat her
moves. Thank God both she and her father
are dead and gone. It would have been better if her father had to go earlier in
which case there would be smooth sailing for non-mergerists like us.
She was according to me
a fierce communal woman having anti-Christian feelings. Denying grants to English
medium schools by her when she was in power
was a method she used to punish
the Diocesan schools.
Her open deslike for
Catholics in Goa came when she insulted the head of Catholics by making an open
statement saying “by asking clemency for
criminal Kumar, Bishop Rahul Gonsalves made a big show of his cheapness”. This was when court sentenced Kumar for
gallows. Our Bishop then pleaded for
mercy for Kumar by commuting the death sentence to life imprisonment.
Incidentally, within a short period as a punishment for her, her government
collapsed and she became a non-entity while our same Bishop remained as Bishop
only.
She was called Iron
lady by some people but why I don’t know.
She was feeble principled woman for this reason she changed so many parties after she lost power. Because of her
father she got foothold in politics otherwise she was nowhere.
A.Veronica Fernandes.
