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PRAMOD, VISHWAJIT DISCIPLINED!By Rajan Narayan
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PRAMOD, VISHWAJIT DISCIPLINED!By Rajan Narayan

Feb 07- Feb 13, 2026, Politics February 6, 2026 , by

During his dash to Goa soon after he became the national chief of the BJP Nitin Nabin diciplined the dissident ministers like Vishwajit Rane and Rohan Khaunte who have been embrassing the State government.

THE newly appointed Bharatiya Janata Party President Nitin Nabin appears to have read the riot act to Vishwajit Rane, the TCP minister and Pramod Sawant, the chief minister of Goa. The CM and the rest of his cabinet are probably not aware that comments in the social media are very closely monitored by the social media cell of the BJP. The BJP Headquarters has taken cognizance of the growing revolt against the use and misuse of the Town & Country Planning Act by Vishwajit Rane. It is also aware of the simmering differences between the Pramod Sawant government, where rival power structures headed by Rohan Khaunte, Michael Lobo and Mauvin Goudinho, threaten the stability of the double-engined BJP government in the state.
The dash to Goa by the new BJP chief soon after he was installed by Narendra Modi is not a coincidence. Indeed, it was the first visit by Nabin to any of the BJP-ruled states after his anointment as the new BJP chief. Clearly, his mission is to crack down on dissent and ensure that at least in public there is a show of solidarity. Not surprisingly, at the inauguration of the Tuem hospital in Pernem taluka, Vishwajit Rane declared that he had no differences with Chief Minister Pramod Sawant. The CM echoed Rane’s sentiments and both hoisted their hands up together in a show of brotherhood. Vishwajit claimed that he had accepted Pramod Sawant’s designation as an Ayurveda doctor attached to the Health Services, when the former desired to enter politics. Pramod Sawant confirmed it, though pointing out that Rane had got the time frame wrong.

PUBLIC ANGER
THE CM has had to repeatedly intervene to reverse decisions taken by Vishwajit Rane in the face of public anger. The first of this happened in Arambol where in response to a mass uprising Pramod Sawant intervened and directed Rane to cancel the permission given for hill cutting on an area of 2.5lakh sq meters to favor a mega real estate project. Similarly, the CM had to given an assurance that the Bondwell lake in Santa Cruz would be protected. Rane had to eat humble pie and agree to cancel building permissions given to real estate builders in the zone of influence of the lake.
Pramod Sawant also overruled Rohan Khaunte to shift the Unity Mall and the Prashashan Stambh out of Chimbel due to the vigorous and continuous protest by the people of Chimbel. This despite the fact that Rohan Khaunte had kept insisting that the Unity Mall would help Goan artisans and help marketing of geographically indexed Goan products like cashewnuts and cashew feni. Never mind that only one floor was earmarked for Goan handicrafts and other products in the 8-storeyed mall.


The visit of the BJP president was marked by controversy. To the embarrassment of Chief Minister Pramod Sawant the Chimbel villagers had announced the mother of rallies at the Azad maidan on the day of the BJP president’s visit. Clearly, Pramod Sawant did not want the BJP president to see the extent of disenchantment with the BJP government. Also Home Minister Pramod Sawant very quickly declared Section 144 in the whole of Panjim to sabotage the rally of the Chimbalkars. This did not prevent the BJP karya karta from holding a mega procession to escort the BJP chief to the party headquarters in a decorated jeep. This raised questions about the selective application of Section 144, which bars the gathering of more than four people at any place in Panjim,
They should not have bothered as Nabin had been fully briefed on the ongoing protest including the fall out of the Enough to Enough movement launched by former Chief Justice Ferdino Rebello. The protest in Goa and particularly the Enough is Enough movement has received wide publicity in the national media. In any case, in these days of social media, even with the help of “godi” media it is not possible to conceal the million mutinies brewing in Goa.

CLUED-UP NABIN
THE BJP chief also directed the party unit in Goa to reach out to the minorities. Nabin had clearly studied the electoral arithmetic in the state. The BJP in Goa came to power as a partner in the short lived government headed by rebel Congressman Francisco Sardinha in early 2000. The first BJP government formed by Manohar Parrikar was a coalition government propped up by three Catholic MLAs, the fulcrum was Atanasio “Babush” Monserrate, who Parrikar had to induct as the TCP minister.
But besides the mercenary and opportunistic then Taleigao MLA, Parrikar also reached out to Mathany Saldanha, the Cortalim MLA, and Felip Neri, the Velim MLA. Mathany Saldanha, a much respected activist, remained faithful to Manohar Parrikar and was rewarded with a ministry and a seat in the assembly for his wife after his premature death. When the government collapsed following the withdrawal of support by Babush Monserrate and his associates, Parrikar realized that no party in Goa could form a stable government without the support of the minority Catholic community.
The minority Catholic community might now account for only 25% of the total native population down from 40% at the time of Liberation. However, large parts of not only south Goa but even north Goa are fiefdoms of the minority community. Babush Monserrate controls the capital city of Panjim and neighboring Taleigao. And old time supporter of Manohar Parrikar is his former classmate in the St Xavier’s College, Francis D’Souza, whose son Joshua inherited his ticket and the constituency of Mapusa. Joshua is the deputy speaker for the assembly. Nilesh Cabral is the BJP MLA from Curchorem. Aldona is also represented by a Catholic MLA of the Congress party, Carlos Alvares. South Goa remains a Catholic stronghold.
Indeed, both the Mormugoa taluka and Salcete are primarily controlled by Catholics. In the Mormugoa taluka we have Mauvin Godinho, a former Congress stalwart who contested the last election on the BJP ticket. Alex Sequeira of Nuvem, who briefly blackmailed Pramod Sawant into making him environment minister, is also a Congress defector. The Curtorim seat is represented by Congress MLA Reginaldo Lourence, the Velim and the Benaulim seats are represented by AAP Catholic MLAs. Even in Ponda taluka the BJP was depended on the late Ravi Naik, the Congress defector and Sudhin Dhavilkar, the MGP alliance partner.

ENTER DIGAMBAR KAMAT
IN the 2006 election which saw the BJP defector Digambar Kamat becoming the Congress chief minister, Manohar Parrikar began actively reaching out to the minority community. Parrikar himself owned his repeated victory in Panjim to the Catholics of the various colonies in and around Miramar. In the 2011 elections, Parrikar for the first time offered BJP tickets to Congress rebel MLAs. To the surprise of Manohar Parriakr, all the Catholic MLAs contesting on the BJP ticket won the elections, and he returned to power as the chief minister. Never mind that he did not complete a full term as he was co-opted to be the defense minister in the first Narendra Modi government in 2014. The subsequent chief ministers who followed him like Lakshmikant Parsekar and now Pramod Sawant seem to have forgotten the dependence of the BJP on the Catholic voters of Goa.
It is a matter of record that 14 of the MLAs in the present legislative assembly are Catholics. The Central leadership of the BJP has woken up to the fact that not only in Goa but in Christian strongholds like the north-east and Kerala, they have to change their tactics to woo the Christian minority community. The BJP strategists realized that unlike the rest of India it was the Hindus who were a minority in the northeast.
In the many of the northeast states the Christians represent the largest single ethnic group. The BJP through a carrot and stick policy entered into an alliance with the splinter groups of regional parties to form and control the political narrative in the north-eastern states. In the process they created a communal polarization which backfired very badly in states like Manipur, where the administration is run by the BJP which could not control a major fight between the two dominant tribal groups.

CREDIT MANOHAR PARRIKAR
THE formula for Christian-dominated areas is development and other sops instead of hardcore Hindutva. It must be said to Manohar Parrikar’s credit that he never imposed Hindutva agenda on Goa. In fact, he barred Mutalik of the Ram Sena from entering Goa. Alas, Pramod Sawant has given legitimacy to hardline Hindutva groups like the Sanathan Sanstha. The winter session of the assembly saw an extreme case of Hindutva fixation with the BJP insisting on a debate on Vande Mataram, rather than the Birch in Romeo Lane tragedy which claimed 25 lives in an inferno.
It is in this context that the new BJP chief directed the chief minister and his team to take the minorities along, to reach out to them, in particular the Catholic community in Goa. Never mind that it is perhaps the large Muslim migrant community that is now probably the swing factor in Goan politics. All those who have been victims of the BJP whether in Gujarat or Uttar Pradesh are taking refuge in Goa. This includes a large number of suspect Bangladeshis who find it difficult to continue to live in West Bengal and Assam.
Though the BJP may stoop to conquer in respect of the Catholics in Goa, it continues to maintain a distance from the large Muslim minority community in the state.

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