'Land sharks want Cong out of power in Goa'

Q&A/ Digambar Kamat

on the recent political crisis in the state.

You have been chief minister for just two months and have already faced a near collapse of your government. What happened?

Yes, I have not even completed two months in office. We have not even settled down, leave aside my giving cause to somebody to offer her resignation. Yes, I am referring to Victoria Fernandes, one of the MLAs from the Congress. In fact, I had made her secretary of the party in Goa, and even appointed her as chairperson of the Kadamba Transport Corporation (state corporation). She gave no clue to her mind as she accepted these positions readily. Never did she point out her differences on policy matters or even personally against me.

Why did she decide to part ways with you in that case?

There are strong rumours that a lot of money was being offered to topple my government. The money being talked about openly in Goa is to the tune of Rs 20 to 30 crore. But I am happy that other legislators have stood with me and the Congress party is one. In the long run, this will give us credibility in the eyes of the public.

You are levelling serious charges without offering any proof.

What proof can I have when people are openly talking about the hand of powerful land mafia in the recent developments in Goa? Mind you, these land sharks have made investments to the tune of Rs 3,000 crore in the state. They are all sorts of people "" from Dubai, West Asia, Russia, etc., who have grabbed land in Goa through subversion of laws. Obviously, they are ready to spend any amount of money to get my government out of power.

But how did you annoy them? The Goa regional plan, which had come under criticism from a large section of civil society, already stands scrapped.

The land mafia is against me since I ordered demolition of all the illegal structures. My predecessor, Pratapsinh Rane, had scrapped the regional plan. But now, my government has announced its decision to raze buildings which had started coming up under the scrapped plan.

Did you have no idea of the political coup that was being hatched against you by the Opposition with the help of your allies?

People had given Congress a clear mandate to rule Goa. We, along with our pre-poll allies, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), had won 19 seats, while the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) went down from 17 to 14 seats. With the support of two-member Maharashtra Gomantak Party (MGP) and two Independent MLAs, my ministry had a clear majority of 23 in the House. During the Budget Session, these MGP people must have been lured by those behind the plot. Victoria Fernandes had not been coming to the House before the MGP withdrew its support. Our party took strong exception to this and submitted a disqualification petition to the Speaker.

On June 24, PWD Minister Sudhir Bhavalkar, who belongs to the MGP, came to my residence in connection with some work. I asked him weather it was true that the MGP was planning withdrawal of support to my government. He asked me not to pay heed to rumours as the MGP had pledged to support my government for five years. On the same night, I got a call from media groups that the MGP along with BJP leaders had just announced withdrawal of support to my government.

Next, the scene shifts to the legislative Assembly. What happened there?

My party had already moved a disqualification petition against Victoria Fernandes in the House. When the House assembled, our party insisted the Speaker take up the petition against Fernandes first. It ended in a melee. BJP people did not have the guts to parade their MLAs before the governor as he would have definitely questioned the presence of Fernandes among them. So, they staged a drama in Delhi by parading their MLAs before the President. It was all meaningless since the place to test the strength of a government is the floor of the Assembly and neither the Raj Bhawan nor the Rashtrapati Bhawan.

Your party has tried to use bullying tactics to see your government scrape through.

I don't think there was any misuse of powers. In fact, in Delhi, I spent a full day with the home minister, explaining what had happened. Even the Centre had misgivings about the proceedings in the House that day. The fact is that as per the directions of the governor, I sought a vote of confidence, after the MGP leaders and two Independent legislators had withdrawn their support to my government. The Opposition did not press for a division of vote.

Fernandes and two MGP legislators had been restrained from voting pending their disqualification petitions before the Speaker. At present, in the 40-member House, my government enjoys support of 19 members (including the Speaker's), while the BJP has 18.

Although the BJP has approached the Supreme Court, it is common knowledge that the two-member MGP parliamentary group was entitled to take its independent decisions but was not allowed to do so.

No. I have consulted legal experts on this. Under the 10th Schedule, the MGP's central committee was the only authorised body to take a decision on withdrawal of support to my government. Mind you, on June 6, MGP's central committee had given its letter of support to my party. But when the Speaker had called for the proceedings of the MGP's central committee to see whether it had withdrawn the support, it could not come up with any evidence.

Being into politics in smaller states like Goa seems to be quite a task. What is your opinion?

In Goa, each constituency has about 25,000 voters on an average. People simply don't vote for an ideology or a party but for a person, and sometimes for his individual performance. Surely, there are problems in the politics of smaller states which have often faced political instability. Sometimes, I feel smaller states are not viable because of the political fragility. But, to some extent, even the civil society has to mature and elect people who are good.

Today, after what happened in Goa, do you think people are justified in being cynical about politics?

In Goa, the BJP has a record of always coming into power through the backstage. A question of morality should be raised about their conduct, not ours. How dare they try to cobble a coalition when they had just fallen from 17 to 14 seats? Earlier too, they had started with four members and formed government after engineering splits and defections. In fact, Rajiv Pratap Rudy (BJP's Goa hand) had been camping in Panaji for long. He must have been working out the new political alliance.