Goa CM Manohar Parrikar (1955-2019). (Photo | PTI)
Goa CM Manohar Parrikar (1955-2019). (Photo | PTI)

It won’t be easy for Goa to find a man of Parrikar's stature

Humble, accessible, good-humoured … that could be a perfect thumbnail sketch of Manohar Parrikar.

Humble, accessible, good-humoured … that could be a perfect thumbnail sketch of Manohar Parrikar. All three attributes, however, only made up the external persona of the man who was shaped by three distinct formative influences - Goa, RSS and IIT-Bombay. Parrikar had internalised these identities, and self-crafted his image.

That’s why he wore his official hats so lightly, without flaunting the trappings of power, walking through vaulted halls in his trademark bush shirt. Sometimes this easy way, the propensity to straight talk, landed him in controversies of the kind his Delhi durbari colleagues would rarely walk into. But then, the disarming Goan spirit endeared him to many. And nothing would ever besmirch his personal reputation, whether Rafale or the heated disputes over casinos, mining or land deals back in Goa.

As defence minister, for all his affability, he wielded the stick to break the bureaucratic stranglehold over the defence ministry, and spoke up more for the footsoldiers than the military top brass. He did not just openly pine for Goan fish curry-rice, back in Goa, he was more accommodating of the Christian clergy than most of his brethren. It was not for nothing that the shakha-going engineer, a North Goa grocer’s son, got to be CM four times in the free-wheeling state of sunlight, sand and sea. He stood his ground on Goa’s food habits with the same gusto as he swung the IFFI shift there.

In his last stint in the state, it was not quite the same Parrikar. Somewhere, concentration of power had become the abiding logic; he hung on to the CM’s chair through his health crisis, somewhat of a sad spectacle, literally a shadow of his old self. But the drama that attends the search for his successor (even as he was being laid to rest) explains why he had clung on. It won’t be easy for Goa to find a man of matching stature.

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