The greatest enemies of Goa and Goans were Dayananda Bandodcar and his daughter Shashikala Kakodcar who fought vigorously to liquidate Goa and Goans. They both used their political and official might to further their fight to victory but true Goans fought against their sinister move to protect Goa from getting into extinction. This was during the Opinion Poll when as a young school boy I was kept occupied even by neglecting my studies and other necessities in campaigning and canvassing for TWO LEAVES a symbol of anti-merger in order to oppose their move to merge Goa with Maharastra.
May her soul rest in peace and may the heavenly God forgive her for fighting against Goa, Goans and Konkani. She gave lot of sleepless nights to genuine Goans to devise ways and means to counter her moves against the interest of Goa. Our elders also faced lot of inconveniences to defeat her moves. Thank God both she and her father are dead and gone. It would have been better if her father had to go earlier in which case there would be smooth sailing for non-mergerists like us.
She was according to me a fierce communal woman having anti-Christian feelings. Denying grants to English medium schools by her when she was in power was a method she used to punish the Diocesan schools.
Her open deslike for Catholics in Goa came when she insulted the head of Catholics by making an open statement saying “by asking clemency for criminal Kumar, Bishop Rahul Gonsalves made a big show of his cheapness”. This was when court sentenced Kumar for gallows. Our Bishop then pleaded for mercy for Kumar by commuting the death sentence to life imprisonment. Incidentally, within a short period as a punishment for her, her government collapsed and she became a non-entity while our same Bishop remained as Bishop only.
She was called Iron lady by some people but why I don’t know. She was feeble principled woman for this reason she changed so many parties after she lost power. Because of her father she got foothold in politics otherwise she was nowhere.
A.Veronica Fernandes.