This 19th May the voters of Panaji Assembly Constituency will be called upon to elect their new MLA to fill the vacancy created by the death of Manohar Parrikar on 17th March.
This corrupt practice of Dynasty politics should be strongly rejected and this is the reason why the people of Mapusa Constituency who go to the polls on April 23rdwill demonstrate their strong objection to this undemocratic and discredited process. They will throw their overwhelming support behind a tried and tested humble soul Sudhir Kandolkar and vote for him to be the next MLA of Mapusa.
In Panaji some of the BJP sycophants may be chanting the name of Manohar Parrikar’s son Utpal. This will have to be strongly resisted as Panaji is not intellectually bankrupt. And why make the inexperienced and reluctant Utpal accountable for the colossal neglect that Panaji city has suffered over the last two and half decades while his late father was MLA? No Panaji resident would contemplate or accept Utpal or anybody else being handed the poisoned chalice of continuing the corrupt, negligent, discredited, humiliating legacy of Manohar Parrikar, a failed CM and MLA of Panaji for over two decades.
As the Panaji bye-election scheduled for next month will cost the tax payer, around a whopping five crores and the next MLA will have a term of less than three years only, we should ponder and deliberate whether we can make better use of the entire financial burden on the Tax payers by selecting and electing an all party consensus candidate as Panaji’s next MLA. Let us all deliberate with an open mind keeping the best interests and well-being of Panaji at heart.
The one name I could suggest is of Prof Subhash Velingkar who I have personally known for over four decades. We may have wide ideological differences, but nobody could ever dispute Prof Velingkar’s honesty in public life and his invaluable contribution to Goa’s educational and social arena. In addition to honesty and integrity, Panaji desperately needs a seismic push to emerge from the paralysis of more than two years of lack of leadership and governance. The stagnation in Panaji is all too evident and is a product of twenty years of political neglect and a dereliction of duty towards the city and the residents by its MLA Manohar Parrikar, who put himself and party before everything else.
Being a resident of the city, Prof Velingkar is very well versed with Panjim and over the next just over two and a half years he could contribute immensely to uplift our dwindling city.
Let us deliberate on other alternative names too and if we can arrive at a consensus, we would all have to convince Prof Subhash Velingkar, to be that breath of fresh air and armed with a vision to sweep away the discredited past and rescue a sinking Panaji.
