While the rest of the country might celebrate December 25 as Good Governance Day, as sought by the ruling BJP at the Centre, Goa, possibly only the BJP ruled State, will go ahead with Christmas as usual.
Chief Minister laxmikant Parsekar said that December 25 won’t be a working day for the Government offices. “We have informed our high command that we will be unable to observe Good Governance Day on December 25. But we will do it (conduct programmes as per the Central Government initiative) before and after that day. This Government has a tradition of delivering good governance,” Parsekar said.
The State boasts of more than one-fourth Catholic population and the way the community votes is often a deciding factor in the State elections. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s NDA Government had announced a plan to mark former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s birthday on December 25 as ‘Good Governance Day’ with several programmes lined up in Government offices as part of the commemoration.
Coupled with the Union Human Resource Ministry’s circular asking Central schools to hold programmes themed on ‘Good Governance day’, on Christmas Day, created a storm offering enough fuel to the Opposition to corner the Government on the issue. The Opposition lost no opportunity to accuse the Government of trying to hurt the sentiment of Christians.
“The more they try to kill the Christmas spirit with their crooked ways, the Christmas spirit will glow. The deputy Chief Minister and his altar boys should come out clearly on the attack of the BJP on Christmas,” Nationalist Congress Party State vice-president Trajano D’Mello said.
In Goa, Christmas is celebrated like other major community festivals, with markets, malls and ordinary shops decked for the occasion. Earlier on Wednesday, a spokesperson for the Roman Catholic said that the Government’s moves were creating a sense of insecurity amongst the minorities.
“Such statements are disturbing,” the spokesperson said on Wednesday. On Tuesday, the Goa Archbishop, considered a spiritual leader of the Catholic population in the State, also publicly endorsed a statement of the National United Christian Forum, which has lambasted attempts by the State to de-value Christmas.
“Christmas is the only holiday that we Christians have in the whole year when we join the rest of the world in celebrating the birth of the ‘Prince of Peace,’ our lord Jesus Christ,” the forum said.
The statement also expressed “serious concern” over a whole basket of issues including conversions, Sangh Parivar affiliated organisations strong arming Christian schools and several other issues.
That the Government would relent became apparent after the State Tourism Minister Dilip Parulekar said that celebrating Good Governance Day would be next to impossible.
“We should get a holiday. We are Goans, whether Catholic or Hindu. We celebrate our main festivals with each other and they have said that they should come (to work),” Parulekar said. This isn’t the first time the State BJP is in a soup over holidays.
A similar attempt by Goa’s first BJP-led coalition Government under the Chief Ministership of Manohar Parrikar to make Good Friday an ‘optional’ holiday continues to haunt the party which ahead of the elections sought to brand itself as dear to the Opposition.