By Marcellus D’Souza

Apr 7: The rumour, that Margao MLA Digambar Kamat is joining the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) spread as quickly as possible. It was discussed, debated and clarified in public as well as in private conversation. In party circles – both the Congress party as well as the BJP party who met to celebrate their Foundation Day or Sthapana Divas.

It would not be wrong to say, the rumour was the talk of the town. All it took to originate was the fact that Kamat along with his wife had flown to Delhi to attend the marriage of a ‘close relative’.

The rumour mills began to crunch and creek. Meaning was read into the undertaken trip by the Kamat’s. Luckily their flight seat numbers were not commented or the marriage invitation card was not scrutinized. There was absolutely no hint that Digambar Kamat a Congress veteran would yearn for a meeting either with the Gandhi’s or the Congress functionaries. The fact that he was planning to jump ship and land into the open arms of the BJP became news.

In it’s over enthusiasm to report the news, the Goan media gave the rumour credence. They had picked up the whiff from the national media. Digambar Kamat clarified that reports claiming that he will switch to the BJP are “absolutely untrue”. But isn’t anything possible in politics?

This is the season of speculation. Three positions still remain vacant in the Pramod Sawant 0.2 cabinet. The jostling for the priced post is currently underway. Punters, rumour mongers and people not in the know of things are throwing up various reasons and names why a particular MLA will make it to the winning tape. The results of who will fill these vacant posts should hopefully be out into the open by the weekend.

Digambar Kamat was according to rumours, to be accommodated as ‘power minister’ if he had successfully joined the BJP yesterday. That is the extent; a rumour can be stretched and made believable. The BJP will be keen to woo the 68-year-old. There could not be a better coloured feather in the BJP cap. The BJP would love to tom tom the fact that it has finally got even with the Congress. If the BJP gets the desired catch, it will prove that the oath taken by Congress men, not to ditch the party, at a dargah, temple and church before the elections, has no relevance in the game of power politics.

Digambar Kamat started his political career in the Congress and flirted with the BJP for a brief period in 1994 when he joined the Coalition government. However in 2005 he returned to the Congress and has remained a steadfast supporter of the grand old party. On April 1, 2022, Congress President Sonia Gandhi appointed Kamat as “permanent invitee to the Congress Working Committee (CWC) with immediate effect”. The CWC is the highest body in the 137-year-old party. Could he then ditch the party?

Could be Digambar Kamat is disillusioned, like so many other Congress men and women with the functioning of the party. Could be he yearned to remain CLP leader but was forced to make space for Michael Lobo. The same Michael, who succeed in giving the impression that he was in the driver’s seat, during the election campaign and after. The politician from Calangute, who successfully pulled the rug from beneath the feet of Digambar Kamat to the post? Or could Digambar Kamat not prefer being Leader of the Opposition? In his golden years, could he be hesitant to confront the Pramod Sawant government on various issues.

True, Kamat comes to the job fully qualified. President of Swimming Federation of India from 2006 to 2019, he surely knows the use of various strokes to maneuver the deepest waters and currents. A former Chief Minister from 2007 to 2012 he will not be in alien company if he decides to make the switch. His former colleague Vishwajit Parrikar, who was health minister in his cabinet, already holds the same portfolio in the Sawant 0.2 government. Many of his ex Congress colleagues like Ravi Naik have been awarded plump post in the current government. The rumour assertively shows the good and importance Kamat enjoys in Goan society cutting across party affiliations. It need not be said, but he has assumed the converted post of ‘elder’ and ‘headman’.

Could the rumour be believed? Kamat clarified that he would not be at home, if the rumour was true. But wasn’t yesterday an auspicious day. It was the 42nd foundation day of the party that that Kamat had accepted as his own in 1994 but in 2005 had to beat a hasty retreat in support of Margao constituency voters' referendum choice.

The rumour has proven how politics in Goa can be maneuvered. The fact that the rumored inference can make it to national news channels and can become the headline in Goan newspaper, shows how every journalists only asks – what if? That possibility remains open to interpretation and there is every possibility of it being proven credible. Did somebody say the obvious, ‘politicians make the oddest bedfellows’.