Comes the question thus: Whom you will vote this time in the coming election? The answer you get most of the time is this: “All are same. It is better not to vote only”.
See, this is due to the total frustration on the part of the voters who are disgusted with their representatives and candidates who got elected by the voters and ultimately these same candidates acted as traitors by betraying their voters with the Judas Kiss and defecting to the Parties of their choice without even consulting their voters nor taking them into confidence to change their parties. By taking the law into their own hands these Traitor representatives in the Legislatures commit a big crime thereby giving a big setback to the democratic process that functioned so well in the earlier days. However from the recent past the same democratic process has become corroded not due to the fault of our democracy but because of the fault of our Legislators who are become totally corrupt and selfish and to fulfill their goals of acquiring money and power they are ready to do anything without even having any shame. Some of these Legisators are so shameless that they are even ready to supply and dole their wives and daughters to those people who will give them what they want.
People in Goa have lost their confidence in the members of the Legislature who since last so many years are become so selfish that they are rampantly kept themselves busy in looting the people by extorting bribe from them for any services they provide to their voters. See the Jobs for sale scheme in which all the ministers are demanding huge amount of money as bribe and while asking and receiving this amount they are not even ashamed – such bastards are they. They know their mothers only but not the fathers. When the matter of money and power come they are ready to do anything.
When we say all are same, I find fault with this answer in the sense that they will never be equally same since there must be some differences among them even though they are all corrupt but at least a few of them must be less corrupt than the others and for these candidates we must cast our votes instead of totally refraining from voting. I consider refraining from voting is like a sin and as such I consider it as my religious obligation which I must fulfill. When I refrain from casting my vote I allow my enemy who is such a corrupt to increase his count that will give him an edge over others. And once such candidates enter the Legislatures they will do corruption all around and at that point of time we who failed to cast our votes become guilty of allowing corrupt Legislators to overwhelm us. In this case we even lose our right to pass our comment on the corrupt practices by our corrupt elected representatives. At that articular time we should hold ourselves responsible for not doing our duty properly.
The greater culprit of our failure to fortify our democratic process and to develop the standard of our masses is the long rule of Congress Party where Congressmen by involving themselves in corruption acquired the robes of Maharajas for themselves without caring much for the upliftment of the masses where poor remained poor and rich became richer. Winston Churchill at the time of the independence of India warned us saying “these Congressmen will soon turn into feudal lords and will try to lead the life of luxuries and pomp thereby forgetting their duty to uplift the standard of the poor”. India borrowed most of the best aspects for our development from Russia but “when the right to work” is concerned, India shied away from constitutionalizing this right thereby ignoring the right of an Indian to earn his livelihood. The reason behind this is, because Congressmen had no balls to devise ways and means to create jobs for the millions of jobless Indians whose names are rotting in the Registers of Employment Exchange. All those Congress Legislators had nothing in their heads except "Kande ani Botatte" which will not help to build factories and industries to create jobs for our youth who are out of frustration for not getting jobs, growing old when they are young only.
Invasion of Goa by the Congress government under the leadership of Nehru was another major blunder Congress has committed against Goans by sending without consulting and without asking permission of Goans, a huge military force and swallowing Goa as if my beloved Goa is like “Paicho Fath of Nehru”. Because of this unwanted invasion we are suffering the curse of “Bhaile” who will shortly becGome like Jews in Palestine and then they will kick us out from our land just as Jews have done in Palestine for the local Palestinians. Portuguese had to leave from Goa because Goa is not the “Bapaichem Bens of Salazar” but they should not have been sent back the way they were sent, they should have gone back after legally giving our Goa/rights in our hands just as it was done for Pondichery or Macao.
Introduction of Emergency in 1975 was the worst crime Congress Party has committed because of which innumerable Indians suffered so much.
The above mentioned crimes Congress committed against Indians cannot be condoned easily yet I still feel Congress rule is the only salvation for us especially in Goa even though most of the Congressmen in Goa are corrupt. However, with some exceptions, they are more civilized, democratic and moreover they are not communal. If we all Indians want to live a dignified life irrespective of our caste and creed, then Congress should be our choice.
BJP coming to power again will make our life miserable especially for minorities, they may not even allow us to practice our religion, they may nationalize our Church schools, they may tell us to eat and drink what they want, beef eating they may ban completely in Goa. I am sure every BJP man will turn himself into a Salazar to dictate his terms to us. While this tamasha goes none of the members and MLA's from our minority community will dare to confront BJP because by merging in BJP they become slaves of BJP. Before the next election some of the minority community members/MLA's will re-enter into Congress not because they love Congress but in BJP they are denied ministerial portfolios which is good for robbing and looting.
After having said what I said above, inspite of its defects, Congress is the only party that I can count for giving better governance even though other smaller parties are there but to vote for them is wasting your vote because their chances to win are very remote.
A.Veronica Fernandes.