As the controversy rages over the deletion of Gandhi Jayanti from the list of government-endorsed “commercial and industrial” holidays, it appears that Goa chief minister Laxmikant Parsekar may have been left holding the proverbial smoking gun. The bullet may have actually been fired months ago by Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar.
The September 18, 2014, Goa government gazette notification, which has been the subject of national scrutiny and outrage, was in fact published when Parrikar was still holding reins of the state administration as chief minister.
Parsekar was sworn-in as the state’s 11th chief minister only on November 8, a day before Parrikar was formally sworn in as union minister in the cabinet headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Little wonder that Parsekar, when questioned about the notification that drops October 2 as a holiday, preferred to shirk off the query. “I have been here for four months,” he said. “I haven’t got any such decision.”
Parsekar also tried to blame a printing error for the deletion of Gandhi Jayanti from the list of holidays in the gazette notification, which is coincidentally published by the Government Printing Press located on Mahatma Gandhi Road in the heart of Panaji.
“My government has no intention of dropping Gandhi Jayanti as a holiday,” he said. “If it has happened it was either due to a printing mistake or mischief by the Congress. There is an election [for the Zilla Panchayat] in Goa, the Congress will go to any level to create a controversy.”
The notification, while dropping Father of the Nation Mahatma Gandhi’s birth anniversary from the list of nine official holidays 2015, adds an additional holiday ‒ September 18 ‒ to the already existing Ganesh Chaturthi festival holiday, thereby keeping the number of holidays constant.
“It seems like Parrikar is at it again,” Congress MP Shantaram Naik told Scroll. “During his first stint as chief minister, Parrikar had cancelled government holidays on Gandhi Jayanti, Good Friday and on the feast of St. Francis Xavier and now this.”
Parrikar’s first tryst with Gandhi Jayanti was 14 ago. In his first stint as chief minister, the IITian in 2001 announced the scrapping of Gandhi Jayanti, Good Friday among others from the list of state holidays.
The controversial move attracted a lot of flak from the Opposition as well as from Christians, who account for 26% of Goa’s population.
Parrikar was forced to shove the notification into the cold storage. But in 2012, even though the Gandhi Jayanti holiday was maintained, a government circular directed bureaucrats to clean their office premises on October 2.
This was 12 years before Modi launched his Swachh Bharat campaign with similar intent and ingredients.
“Gandhi believed in work and I want to begin the work culture on his birthday,” Parrikar told rediff.com in September 2012 about his controversial decision.
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The September 18, 2014, Goa government gazette notification, which has been the subject of national scrutiny and outrage, was in fact published when Parrikar was still holding reins of the state administration as chief minister.
Parsekar was sworn-in as the state’s 11th chief minister only on November 8, a day before Parrikar was formally sworn in as union minister in the cabinet headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Little wonder that Parsekar, when questioned about the notification that drops October 2 as a holiday, preferred to shirk off the query. “I have been here for four months,” he said. “I haven’t got any such decision.”
Parsekar also tried to blame a printing error for the deletion of Gandhi Jayanti from the list of holidays in the gazette notification, which is coincidentally published by the Government Printing Press located on Mahatma Gandhi Road in the heart of Panaji.
“My government has no intention of dropping Gandhi Jayanti as a holiday,” he said. “If it has happened it was either due to a printing mistake or mischief by the Congress. There is an election [for the Zilla Panchayat] in Goa, the Congress will go to any level to create a controversy.”
The notification, while dropping Father of the Nation Mahatma Gandhi’s birth anniversary from the list of nine official holidays 2015, adds an additional holiday ‒ September 18 ‒ to the already existing Ganesh Chaturthi festival holiday, thereby keeping the number of holidays constant.
“It seems like Parrikar is at it again,” Congress MP Shantaram Naik told Scroll. “During his first stint as chief minister, Parrikar had cancelled government holidays on Gandhi Jayanti, Good Friday and on the feast of St. Francis Xavier and now this.”
Parrikar’s first tryst with Gandhi Jayanti was 14 ago. In his first stint as chief minister, the IITian in 2001 announced the scrapping of Gandhi Jayanti, Good Friday among others from the list of state holidays.
The controversial move attracted a lot of flak from the Opposition as well as from Christians, who account for 26% of Goa’s population.
Parrikar was forced to shove the notification into the cold storage. But in 2012, even though the Gandhi Jayanti holiday was maintained, a government circular directed bureaucrats to clean their office premises on October 2.
This was 12 years before Modi launched his Swachh Bharat campaign with similar intent and ingredients.
“Gandhi believed in work and I want to begin the work culture on his birthday,” Parrikar told rediff.com in September 2012 about his controversial decision.