Is Arun Desai’s transfer a step towards stripping off Sudin?
GOANEWS DESK, PANAJI | 19 September 2015 23:47 IST
The bribery case in the transport department may ultimately lead to stripping off Sudin Dhawalikar, the BJP government’s major alliance partner, of PWD and transport portfolios.
The arrested peon of transport director is yet to admit that he accepted the bribe of Rs one lakh on behalf of transferred director Arun Desai.
But leading cadres of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party have gone ahead demanding that important portfolios of PWD and transport be removed from Dhawalikar.
Transport due to the ongoing bribery case and PWD for his failure to improve the road conditions in Taleigao.
“We congratulate chief minister Laxmikant Parsekar for transferring Arun Desai from the transport director’s post. Now he should also remove transport portfolio from Dhawalikar and conduct a fair inquiry”, says Dattaprasad Naik, the Mandal president of Taleigao BJP unit.
It’s hard to believe outspoken Naik that he is shouting against the senior minister of his own government since people are furious over the horrible road conditions in Taleigao.
If so, then comes the question if the BJP is going the Congress way where nobody is having control over anybody.
Secondly, neither any senior party functionary nor the chief minister has told Naik to keep quite. He continues shouting.
The third question is – why the Taleigao BJP unit is talking about transport portfolio, which has no relation to the road conditions?
It’s crystal clear now that Desai has been transferred since he was trying to pressurise the arrested peon not to name him but assistant director Vishram Govekar in the bribery case.
After this, either the director or the arrested peon needs to name Dhawalikar, based on which the chief minister could act against Dhawalikar, officially – and not politically.
But the political news reveals that more strategies are being planned to mount ‘artificial pressure’ on CM Parsekar to strip off Dhawalikar of both the portfolios.
The whole drama of cabinet reshuffle may thus end into portfolio reshuffle, without dropping any one of the Dhawalikar brothers.
The duo – Sudin and Dipak – are the ministers in the Parsekar government with a strength of mere three MGP MLAs.
Dipak Dhawalikar was already stripped off the lucrative cooperation portfolio when the baton of chief minister was handed over by Manohar Parrikar to Laxmikant Parsekar.
Sources in the BJP reveal that Parsekar would only induct deputy speaker Anant Shet, filling the vacancy of Mickky Pacheco, who is serving a six-month jail term.
The real issue behind the whole game is the way Dhawalikar’s MGP is barging into BJP’s constituencies, may it be Shiroda, Sanguem, Sanvordem, Canacona, Valpoi and even Pernem.
Sources in the MGP disclosed to goanews.com that it would contest 25 out of 40 seats, without having alliance with the BJP.
It’s thus a simple game. Strip off MGP of all the lucrative portfolios so that they fall short of money to pump in and defeat the BJP in its own constituencies.
The outcome of the transport department bribery case thus becomes crucial.
Dhavlikars are the Churchill Bros. of the North.
Their downfall is imminent too.