On last Sunday I attended the Gram Sabah Meeting in my village In the Panchayat Compound that was also attended by the very good number of attendees, this type of number was rarely seen in the recent past. However, what surprised me was this that as usual all the former Sarpanchas and many of the ex Panchas were as usual missing. When they remain absent from attending this important Meet, they give an impression that they are least bothered about the village affairs while when they were ruling our village, they were talking big - big about their village. This type of cunning and crooks behaviour they must stop in future. They being the former Sarpanches and Panches, they had more responsibilities since they are well experienced in running the local affairs. I dont know what they think of themselves, only as elected they should attend such meetings and otherwise sleep at home? One of the ex Sarpanchas was present but since he was an elected member for the current term he had no choice but to attend not only his duty that makes him obligated to attend but he is eagerly waiting to don the colours of the Sarpanch if he gets an opportunity even thru the back door. Because of their selfish AND REVENGEFUL nature, today in Goa Sarpanches and other Panches are not respected. Who among them in our Panchayats in Goa is upright and clean with the exception of very few? “Assa titlei choddse chor ani Bamtte “.
This type of dirty game is played by most of the ex Sarpanches and Panches because they are either afraid of their sins they committed as elected representatives or they are feeling inferior to attend such meetings when they already enjoyed the power once. If this is correct then they are sadly mistaken because they became somebody in our localities then it was only because of their membership in their respective Panchayats. Otherwise nobody cares for them, they don’t even know to say hello to others, they are like animals from the jungle. Good that they were very backward during the past regime in Goa otherwise they would opt for the status of Maharajas when most of our elected members in our local Panchayats would not even be fit to sweep the floor of their Panchayat.
A.Veronica Fernandes.