1967 was a historic moment for Goa. Within five years of Goa’s liberation from the Portuguese in 1962, a referendum ( commonly called opinion poll) was held to decide whether Goa should remain a separate territory or merge with neighbouring Maharashtra. Against the might of Maharashtrians that included stalwarts such as Vasantrao Naik, Y B Chavan, as well as a galaxy of Marathi authors, the Goans stood as a team cutting across communities and decided to retain a separate identity. One of the heroes of that struggle was a young poet Ullhas Buyao, commonly known as Goa shahir (people’s poet) who through his songs travelled the length and breadth of Goa and convinced Goans to remain separate.
Today, his son Siddhanath, also a poet and a musician, interestingly named after one of Goa’s hills Siddhanath, is fighting a similar battle. In 2012, the BJP came to power with Goans tired of Congress’s corruption. IITian Parrikar got a clear mandate, but for 5 years, Parrikar made Goans go through hell. Goa today has become the sleeze capital of India with lots of casinos, sex and drugs. Ironically Parrikar came to power on the promise of stopping casinos. The same story is with corruption.
In this year’s assembly elections held earlier, Goans convincingly voted against the BJP, but using sly means, the Goa Forward party which won on the anti-BJP platform was allegedly bought and a government formed by Parrikar. 23 rd is the by election in Panjim constituency where Parrikar is pitted against a humble Congressman AICC secretary Girish Chodankar known for his integrity.
Siddhanath through this video
https://www.facebook.com/samir.kelekar/videos/10155663967233656/