Despite patchy track record, Sawant may lead BJP into 2022 battle for Goa

Sawant seems to have fallen short of the one master skill, which overrode all of Parrikar's failings

Shoes were never really a part of former chief minister late Manohar Parrikar's wardrobe given his penchant for open footwear. When Pramod Sawant took over the state's reins after Parrikar's demise, it was not going to be easy for him to fill the four-time chief minister and Union defence minister's well-worn sandals.

After Sawant assumed charge as CM on March 19, 2019, there wasn't much expectation from the 48-year-old mining machine operator's son to blaze a trail. All he was expected to do was to take directions from the state BJP's core committee and keep the show going till 2022.

Sawant's early few months in power made him the face of the ruling BJP's brute efforts to raid the opposition's larder of legislators in order to consolidate power, a step deemed necessary after the death of the party's patriarch Parrikar.

Working swiftly, Sawant ejected two coalition allies, Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party and Goa Forward Party from his Cabinet. In months, 10 Congress MLAs, led by the Leader of Opposition Chandrakant Kavlekar, split from the party and merged with the BJP. The additional influx of 12 MLAs (including two from the MGP) made Sawant's majority unassailable in the 40-member house.

Also Read | BJP sounds poll bugle, appoints election in-charges in 5 states

Sawant, a Maratha by caste, took advantage of the 'culling season' by lopping off the key aides (mostly Gaud Saraswat Brahmins) of Parrikar from plum power positions, a move that has ended up irking the numerically small, but influential Brahmin community across the political spectrum.

With a majority of 28 MLAs (including one independent legislator) and the legislative opposition virtually rendered numerically toothless, the going should have been smooth for Sawant in the run-up to the 2022 assembly polls.

But here's where the metaphor about filling the shoes of a predecessor comes into play.

Sawant appears to have outdone his predecessor when it comes to popular outreach schemes like 'Swayampurna mitra'—which involves senior bureaucrats visiting village panchayats — or the aggressive vaccination programme or even using technology in matters of governance.

However, he seems to have fallen short of the one master skill, which overrode all of Parrikar's failings — of which there were many — the ability to manage popular perception.

Parrikar's track record in his later regimes was marked by chronic U-turns, streaks of arrogance and dubious decision-making on broad policy issues, but he still managed to keep his reputation as a technocrat and an 'able administrator intact to some extent.

Sawant has beaten Parrikar at governance-related U-turns, which has led his stock to take a severe beating on several counts.

The list of chronicled reversals by his government, ranges across sectors environment, education, electoral politics, among others.

Sawant's latest flip-flop in the long queue of U-turns is the Bhumiputra Adhikarni Bill 2021. The bill was passed by the state government this year and allows occupants of illegal homes to legalise their structures, while also conferring the status of Bhumiputra (son of the soil) to immigrants.

The government was forced to send the legislation into cold storage after wholesale outrage in all sections of society.

Sawant has had ugly and repeated run-ins with his own Health Minister Vishwajit Rane, first over the issue of setting up an Indian Institute of Technology-Goa campus at the Shel-Melaulim plateau in North Goa and later over the spate of deaths due to oxygen shortage at the state's top hospital when the second wave was at its peak.

The scuffles between the two peaked to such an extent that Union Home Minister Amit Shah had to intervene and resolve the scrappy dispute between Sawant and Rane. But the high-profile wrangle appears to have considerably impacted Sawant's credentials as a leader.

Sawant's inability to ensure victory in a municipal by-election in a ward in the Sanquelim municipal council located in his own assembly constituency has also cast doubts about his popularity on his own home turf.

The party's repeated failure to get the crucial mining sector back on track, a legacy issue inherited from the erstwhile Parrikar regime, is also going to haunt Sawant.

While Sawant did try to resolve the deadlock by aggressively pursuing the matter in the Supreme Court, the resumption of mining the industry in the state continues to be a distant dream, nine years after all the industry was stopped in its tracks due to prevalent illegalities.

For now, the lack of a credible Hindu face — BJP's lot of 27 MLAs has 15 Catholics — committed to the BJP appears to be the one factor which Sawant can take comfort in as far as the 2022 assembly polls are concerned.

Check out latest DH videos here