Politicians say this is an old
trick to corner parties ahead
of elections.
Jul 10, 2016 · 06:30 pm
Pamela D’Mello
dmello.pam...@gmail.com
The run up to the 2017 Assembly elections in Goa has been
heralded by a steady rise in one graph -- the number of cases
slapped against Opposition parties.
On June 22, the state's local newspapers reported that former
Nationalist Congress Party minister Nilkanth Halarnkar, who
is now with the Congress, and civil services officer Elvis
Gomes, had been booked in an alleged land scam. A First
Information Report was registered against the two by the Anti
Corruption Branch of the Directorate of Vigilance based on an
individual's complaint. Halarnkar is the former chairman of
the Goa Housing Board, while Gomes was the managing director.
In 2007, the Goa Housing Board decided to acquire land in the
Margao region for a housing scheme. However, acquisition
proceedings were dropped at the owner's request, according to
the complaint, without due process. The property, which had
been marked as a settlement zone, was allegedly changed to a
commercial zone.
Days after the story broke, Gomes, a respected
bureaucrat with a reputation for delivering
results, opted for voluntary retirement amid wide
speculation that he was preparing to dive into
politics with the Aam Aadmi Party, which announced
in May that it would contest the Goa polls next year.
The AAP, in fact, was the first to jump to Gomes’ defence
after the FIR was filed, saying the government was harassing
current as well as potential opponents, thereby undermining
the processes of democracy. The party accused the government
of playing dirty to stall Gomes' rumoured political
ambitions.
Even as Gomes protested that he was not attached to the
Housing Board when the alleged incidents occurred, the FIR
brought out a divide within the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party
in Goa.
While Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar told the media that
Gomes would have to face an inquiry and should not be granted
retirement till that is completed, Deputy Chief Minister
Francis D'Souza batted for Gomes saying he was a good officer
and hinted that he may have chosen to leave service due to
political harassment.
Goa’s Congress President Luizinho Faleiro, meanwhile, accused
the BJP of political vendetta in targeting Harlankar.
Other targets
That same week, the Anti-Corruption Branch registered an FIR
against Churchill Alemao, the former Public Works Department
Minister, and several engineers of the department, for
alleged irregularities in purchasing water tanks.
Alemao and the engineers are accused of purchasing 6,511
water tanks for Rs 1.45 crore -- which was purportedly 25-35%
higher than costs estimated by the department and in
violation of rules, according to a report by the Comptroller
and Auditor General.
Alemao, a former Congress leader, who also had a
brief stint as chief minister of Goa, spent two
months in prison in July 2015 in the controversial
Louis Berger bribery scandal. The US firm was
accused of bribing several Indian officials to bag
major projects in Goa and Guwahati.
Alemao and former Chief Minister Digambar Kamat of the
Congress were chargesheeted for allegedly accepting kickbacks
to favour the firm's consultancy bid for a Rs1,031-crore
water and sewerage project, funded by the Japan International
Co-operation Agency.
Earlier this month, Kamat was called in for questioning and
quizzed by the Enforcement Directorate for eight hours in
connection with this case.
Tried and tested?
This is an old trick, say leaders. "I have publicly said that
filing cases against the Opposition is a time-tested tactic
of the government to hide corruption by its own leaders,"
Vijai Sardesai, an independent MLA who is backing Goa
Forward, a regional party launched early this year, told
Scroll.in. "We can expect them to go after more and more
leaders, either by filing fresh cases or resurrecting old
ones, especially with elections approaching.
"All Opposition leaders in Goa should file anticipatory bail
applications," he added. "We don’t know who they will target
next."
A curtain raiser to this was seen in the run-up to the
crucial civic polls in Goa last year.
In 2012, shortly after the BJP wrested control of
the state from the Congress, the government-run Goa
Industrial Development Corporation filed a case
alleging fraudulent allotment of land for a Special
Economic Zone. Congress leader Chandrakant
Kavlekar, the former chairman of the industrial
development body, was named in the case. After
that, the probe was put on the back-burner, but in
2015, former Chief Minister Pratapsing Rane of the
Congress and Faleiro, the former industries
minister were summoned for questioning just ahead
of the municipal
