This refers to the editorial, “Bhai is back” (February 24). There is a saying” All is well that ends well. The idiom could not have been more apt than in the case of Goa, where the incumbent Chief Minister, after stoically battling the effects of a life-threatening disease, walked into the Assembly in time to present the State Budget. While there has never been a dispute on how strong-willed Manohar Parrikar is, it was the manner in which the State was thrown into utter confusion regarding the Chief Minister’s health, that was disturbing. Having literally spread pandemonium with baseless tales of Parrikar’s debilitating state due to medical complications doing the rounds, the fluid political state in Goa couldn’t have been more evident.
With locals giving credence to the misinformation on the seriousness of Parrikar’s illness, the State was on a virtual boil. This is one aspect of the whole ‘pancreatitis episode’ that must be forgotten and dismissed as a folly of confused minds which had half-cooked tales getting the better of facts. However, the ‘medical furlough’ has enabled Parrikar to emphatically reassert his importance as that factor which binds the queer assortment that goes for the Government in the State. After being in the political firmament of the State for the past quarter of a century, Parrikar, as a man of the masses, has time and again proved his political astuteness so much so that it has become difficult to envisage Goa without him at the helm of affairs. Besieged by a number of issues that trouble the ailing economy of the State, Goans have always looked up to him for solutions. Bhai is destined to play a bigger role in the resurgence of Goa!