Panaji: Former chief minister Manohar Parrikar, it has emerged, was responsible for imposing a ban on the recruitments in the government service, just before the 2017 state assembly elections.
Incidentally, then chief minister Laxmikant Parsekar is being portrayed as the one who is responsible for blocking these recruitments.
The personnel department had recently issued a circular stating, “The government has decided that the ban imposed dated November 22, 2016, and related instructions shall stand withdrawn with immediate effect”, thus lifting the four-and-a-half years long bar.
A core committee member of the Bharatiya Janata Party informed this daily that the decision to ban recruitments in the government service was taken by the state core committee of the party, and this recommendation of the party was just implemented by the Parsekar government.
Parsekar, as the then chief minister, while justifying this decision stated that it was done considering the financial burden of the implementation of recommendations of the Seventh Pay Commission, as also since the state was awaiting the imposition of election code of conduct, in view of the state assembly elections.
The revelation goes that Parrikar, who was the then defence minister and was in Goa during the weekend, also attended this meeting of the state BJP core committee, where also present were Parsekar and the then state BJP president Vinay Tendulkar, besides other members.
“When the issue of putting a ban on the recruitments in government service came for discussion, most of the core committee members were against it. However, Parrikar vehemently supported such a ban arguing that in the event of the BJP coming back to power after the 2017 elections, the new government would withdraw this ban immediately,” a core committee member stated, adding that the insistence on the part of Parrikar finally made the core committee members give in.
Ironically, Parrikar had to step down as the central minister and come to Goa as the chief minister after the 2017 state assembly polls, as the alliance partners of the government wanted him to head the government.
However, Parrikar never withdrew the ban order during his tenure, but amended the same five times so as to get relaxation in some appointments in the government departments.
Pramod Sawant, who succeeded Parrikar, also refrained from withdrawing this order and himself amended it twice for some more recruitments in the government service.
The order was subsequently withdrawn in May 2021. The timing of the withdrawal of this ban order just a couple of weeks before the Goa arrival of B L Santhosh, party’s central leader to launch preparations for the forthcoming assembly elections, and holding Parsekar entirely responsible for depriving the Goan youth from jobs in government service is however perplexing.