Panjim’s idyllic Latinate beauty was steadily overwhelmed by tawdry casino imagery. While in the opposition, and running for elections in 2012, Parrikar led protests on the Mandovi waterfront, decrying casinos as “dens of vice' and “a social evil', which he pledged to eradicate if he became chief minister again.īut when granted a landslide victory, the biggest casino operator in India showed up on the celebratory dais, and subsequently the gambling boats proliferated, becoming ever-larger and more intrusive. This is because the history of casinos in India’s smallest state is an expansive litany of the double cross.Įvery promise has promptly been broken, with the most egregious examples coming in the tenure of Sawant’s predecessor, the late Manohar Parrikar, who represented Panjim for 25 years (there was an interlude while he served as Narendra Modi’s defence minister), eventually dying in office a year ago. The chief minister has gone silent again.

Predictably, 1 February has long gone, and there isn’t any ban. Non-Goans must be banned from buying land in Goa!' Others pointed out that “original Goans' is a bizarre term, with veteran Goa-based editor Ashwin Tombat writing, “If the state government does manage to properly legally define who is a Goan and who is not, then it can and must go ahead and fulfil another, more important and longstanding demand of the Goan people. They should be banned first, and then the issue should be discussed.' Former deputy chief minister Sudin Dhavalikar said, “There are ministers, MLAs, panchas, sarpanchas, zilla panchayat members, playing in casinos. Sawant’s declaration met with instant ridicule. For now, the GST Commissioner can enter the casinos at any time and ask for an identity card if he suspects anyone to be a Goan.' On 30 January, chief minister Pramod Sawant announced “From February 1, we are stopping all the original Goans from entering casinos. Each one was outnumbered by dozens of Indian men, all of them scrambling to grab suggestive selfies.įully aware that gambling is a social problem, the Goa government responded inscrutably. This past New Year’s Eve, taking it one step further, city residents discovered scantily-clad foreign women posted outside the casinos.

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