Witch-hunt against Parrikar aides, kin on, alleges ASG

Panaji, Sep 2 (IANS) Additional Solicitor General of India Atmaram Nadkarni has fired a fresh salvo at Goa Chief Minister Pramod Sawant and his coalition government, claiming there is an ongoing witch-hunt against close aides, even relatives of late Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar.

Nadkarni, a former state Advocate General and one of Parrikar's closest aides, also accused Sawant of operating through a coterie, while slamming governance and public delivery systems during the latter's reign.

"Whether it is lawyers or any professional. For example, Parrikar's son, his father in-law Dr. Mahesh Sardesai, he is a good doctor. There is not even a replacement for him there. He has been terminated. So, you go out and see what the people are talking. Forget about me," Nadkarni said in an interview to a news channel on Sunday evening.

Sardesai was in the past granted repeated extensions in service at the government-run Goa Medical College. His services were terminated soon after Sawant assumed charge.

The Additional Solicitor General's comments come at a time, when Sawant, a Maratha, has been accused by the leaders of the influential Gaud Saraswat Brahmin subgroup (to which Parrikar belonged) of striking against officials and politicians considered close to Parrikar.

Several bureaucrats considered close to Parrikar have been transferred in the few months that Sawant has been power. Politicians and other members of the GSB caste group have also been purged from appointments to government-run corporations, they said.

BJP state President Vinay Tendulkar, however, has denied any such purge.

Parrikar died in March this year, following prolonged illness and was replaced by Sawant as CM on the same day.

Incidentally, soon after Sawant became CM, his government had stripped Nadkarni of all legal briefs related to Goa in the Supreme Court.

While Nadkarni as the Additional Solicitor General, currently holds brief for Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra governments and Andaman and Nicobar, he has said that he would never again appear for the Goa government or any of its departments.

"(Under) this dispensation, it is out of question," Nadkarni said, adding that the removal of his briefs by the government was indicative that "someone" was upset with him or Parrikar.

"There must be someone who is upset with Parrikar or me. Who it is you ask the Chief Minister, he heads the cabinet," he said.

Nadkarni also said that murmurs in the ruling BJP camp that Parrikar had left state administration in the hands of a coterie were incorrect and instead, raised questions about Sawant's style of governance.

"There was not a coterie which was meeting and taking decisions. Coterie may have been formed now, post Parrikar," Nadkarni said.

Parrikar, he said, had risen through the ranks and had not assumed charge of the state "overnight".

"He (Parrikar) had come up from the cadre. He had contested (elections) and all that. Not like this overnight becoming something and manoeuvring things," Nadkarni said, obliquely hitting out at Sawant.

The top lawyer, who has served as Advocate General in successive Parrikar-led regimes in the past also said, that under Sawant's leadership, Goa had witnessed an unprecedented power and water supply crisis and the state's economy was in doldrums.

"This Chief Minister is a new person. He has to perform and show... Today, we have electricity problem. I was here in Goa for two days, lights are flickering, we did not have water for about 10 days. These things were never heard before..." he said.

He also slammed the Sawant-led administration for alleged financial mismanagement, which he claimed, had forced the state administration to borrow Rs 300 crore in three months to tide over government spending.