Earlier, there was a reference to the following article on this discussion group: http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/04/a-conversation-with-goa-chief-mini ster-manohar-parrikar/
In it, the interviewer Sambuddha Mitra Mustafi, said the following in the introduction: The B.J.P.s de-facto prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi is controversial and unacceptable to many of Indias regional parties, whose support will be crucial to the B.J.P. in forming the next government. Even within the B.J.P. several leaders have been harboring the ambition to replace Mr. Modi as the partys prime ministerial candidate. Among them is Manohar Parrikar, the B.J.P. chief minister of the coastal state of Goa. Mr. Parrikar is an affable face of the Hindu right and leader of Indias most prosperous state by per capita income, which is also home to an influential Catholic minority and their distinct history. This is quite a generous praise of our very own Manohar-bab. The interviewer has followed it up with an article in The Economic Times, which is at: http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2013-09-10/news/41937955_1_goa- cm-manohar-parrikar-bjp-care In this article, the praise is even more profuse. Let me give some extensive quotes from the article: QUOTE As it dawns on the media that a Modi-less BJP-led government is an eminently possible outcome of the 2014 elections, naturally the focus will shift to a suitable BJP replacement. In Manohar Parrikar, the party may have the ace of spades: but have they even noticed it? Parrikar's great asset is that he broadens the BJP's voter range. Writer Shobha De, by no means a natural votary of the Hindu right, urged the BJP to nominate Parrikar as their prime ministerial candidate. "It will find countless takers across India," she tweeted, "He's 57. Global. Smart." Why should the BJP care for De's opinion? Because democratic politics is the art of persuasion, not of anger and revisionism, as most Modi fans think it is. It's also maths: every persuaded swing voter counts for two votes (Congress loses one, BJP gains one). That the proud RSS man Parrikar appeals to India's biggest vote bank liberal Hindus also makes him a potential successor to AB Vajpayee's legacy (though Parrikar demurs at the comparison). Since Vajpayee in 1999, the BJP has struggled to get support from these crucial voters, who also make up a large section of the intelligentsia. .............. His biggest achievement has been rescuing Goa's economy from a potentially crippling crisis: the Supreme Court's mining ban last year has hit a quarter of the state's revenues and population. .................. That BJP cadres worship the polariser Modi over the persuader Parrikar, shows how the Hindu nationalists are still struggling to evolve as a 21st century conservative party. ........... If the medieval ruler of Hindu hearts is replaced by a modern leader of Indian conservatives to form a government in 2014, that can only be good for the evolution of the BJP and the conservative movement in India. It will also be in the national interest. UNQUOTE The tweet by Shobha De is VERY interesting. So, in our very own chief minister destined for higher things? But then that will depend on how much of the assessment made by Sambuddha is correct? Going by various statements of various political and economic analysts in Goa, and what some on this discussion group have written, it would seem to me that the assessment is not fully to the mark! I also read somewhere that Sambuddha has made Goa his home! And in New York Times article, he is said to be a media entrepreneur and freelance journalist!! There are some people on this discussion group who are in a similar profession like Sambuddha. Saying so I am thinking in particular of Fredrick Noronha and Mayabhushan Nagvenkar. Perhaps they can enlighten us more about Sambuddha and his source of information.
