Sawant's twin challenge

Can the new Goa chief minister rein in the bureaucracy and assert the primacy of the Goan people?

There are 10 people in the room. If (Maharashtra Chief Minister) Devendra Fadnavis is among the 10, you will be able to spot him in minutes: He has that kind of personality. But Pramod Sawant? He is self-deprecating, low profile, and it will be hard to pick him out in a crowd. And yet, he has some obvious, shining qualities that made Manohar Parrikar spot him and nurture him”, said a supporter of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) with long innings of work in Goa, about the state’s new chief minister.

Sawant belongs to Bicholim in rural Goa, has never been a minister and became an MLA only 11 years ago. His rise was dizzying: He became speaker in his second tenure as MLA, the youngest speaker in the country. “Parrikar promoted Sawant because in him, he saw himself”, said a senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader in Goa. Sawant is an uncomplicated human being, with simple wants and needs: Fish curry and rice will do for him, he gets into no protracted arguments and works quietly.

But everyone from the RSS-BJP family in Goa agrees that he has big shoes to fill. Manohar Parrikar had a compelling quality — leadership. He knew he had to take along 38 per cent Christian minorities in the state, not only for electoral reasons but also because it was the right thing to do. Sawant comes from the same stock: He is second generation RSS, joined the BJP at Parrikar’s nudging but knows that he cannot make beef or nationalism an issue because then the Congress will team up with other malcontents and dislodge him.

And malcontents there are aplenty. It took nearly six hours after Parrikar’s death to settle on a successor and Sawant was sworn in as chief minister at 2 am. The reason? In the 2017 assembly elections, the BJP got only 13 seats, four less than the Congress’s 17, in a house of 40. It was able to form a government largely because of Congress lethargy and the special persuasive powers of Nitin Gadkari and Manohar Parrikar. Now, with the death of two MLAs (Parrikar and Francis D Souza) and the resignation of two others, the strength of the house is 36 but this is no barrier for alliance partners to demand their place in the sun. Foremost among them is Ramkrishna ‘Sudin’ Dhavalikar of the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) who stayed away from Parrikar’s funeral because he got wind of the fact that he was not becoming chief minister. Vijai Sardesai, mentor of the Goa Forward Party (he has said publicly that he believes recitation of Vedic mantras is a good way of enhancing agricultural yield) also made similar noises. They didn’t get the top job — BJP President Amit Shah made it plain to them that they must either accept Pramod Sawant’s leadership or prepare to fight another assembly election so they fell in sulkily. But a price was paid. Both have been made deputy chief ministers. Goa will have a 12-member council of ministers and two deputy chief ministers.

The fun and games is just starting. Not only will Sawant have to keep an eye on his colleagues, he will also have to make sure he continues Goa’s march towards infrastructure and industrial development without compromising the Goan identity. This is crucial. In 2008, Goa scrapped eight proposals for special economic zones (SEZs) rolled out after a law was passed by the central legislature and notifications issued following a public outcry against the acquisition of land. The protestors argued that “outsiders” would flood Goa in search of SEZ jobs that locals will not be able to fill. This cancellation was the first time in history that ethnic issues led to reversal of a central industrial policy. Goa does want infrastructure and industrialisation — but without diluting its identity, and on its own terms.

Sawant has been speaker of the assembly and headed the Goa State Infrastructure Development Corporation Ltd as chairman. And before that he was an ayurveda doctor. That’s it. He now has to run a coalition, take forward Goa’s development despite fetters on mining and casinos, and keep challengers both from his party and the Opposition at bay. 

Those in the RSS who have watched Parrikar from close quarters summed up the challenge before Sawant thus: “In Goa, in the period when Parrikar was ill, the bureaucracy took over. We know that the bureaucracy is like a horse: If not ridden firmly, it can go wild. The challenge before Sawant is not political — it is administrative. Can he rein in the bureaucracy and assert the primacy of the Goan people”?