How Lobos swung political power in Goa

After leaving the BJP six months ago and joining the Congress, Michael Lobo – maverick Goa businessman and politician – tried to return to the former by effecting a split in the latter.

Panaji: Six months after he left the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to join the Congress, maverick Goa businessman and politician, Michael Lobo, tried to return to the former by effecting a split in the latter. The coup failed as Lobo was not able to get two-thirds of the 11 Congress MLAs necessary to escape the provisions of the anti-defection law. His group comprised six Congress MLAs with him, instead of the eight required.

Michael Lobo and his wife Delilah Lobo, a Congress MLA. (HT PHOTO)

This could well rank among the first major failures of Lobo, who has led a charmed life. From the head of the local panchayat to the state legislature, he has moved up, and always ended up on the right side. His current predicament is unique — he is in the Opposition for the first time in his political career and facing a disqualification petition from the party he embraced just six months ago.

A three-time legislator representing the Calangute assembly constituency, the epicentre of Goa’s tourism industry, Lobo, 45, was initially in the pottery business, then managed beach shacks for a living, then grew rich of the real estate boom in the state, and is now the richest legislator in the assembly with assets of ₹93 crore according to his election affidavit.

People close to him say that Lobo started running beach shacks during the 1990s when Calangute was still an easy-going beach destination that inspired songstress Lorna Cordeiro to belt out the eponymous tune “Calangute”, which remains a popular Konkani song to this day. He then entered the real estate and tourism businesses, and as Calangute grew, so did he.

Lobo is unafraid to admit to his humble beginnings. “I used to work for a British-Goan couple Mr and Mrs Johnson running errands for them, trips to the bazaar, the pharmacy and [doing] other odd-jobs. They were the first to help me when I was just 17 with a loan of ₹20,000, and also stood guarantee for a bank loan of ₹30,000 that helped me start my pottery business ,” said Lobo, whose father was forced to quit his job as a medical representative early because of health issues.

Lobo first entered the political field through his involvement in panchayat politics. Though he didn’t contest panchayat elections, he backed his wife Delilah, who was a three-time sarpanch of the village panchayat. He then joined the BJP, and was given the party’s ticket for the district (zila) panchayat polls held in 2009-2010. He won. In 2012, he was among the six Catholic candidates of the BJP — all of whom won.

ECONOMIC RISE

By that time, Lobo was rich. In 2012 Goa assembly elections, the first time Lobo contested, he declared assets to the tune of ₹54 crore, making him among the richest candidates in the state polls that year, according to data released by the Association for Democratic Reforms. In 2019, Lobo was inducted as a minister by the chief minister Pramod Sawant. He was in charge of the departments such as ports and waste management.

In this year’s state election, Lobo left the BJP, when the party reportedly refused to give ticket to his wife Delilah from Siolim assembly constituency, and joined the Congress, which welcomed him with open arms and agreed to give tickets to him and his wife. He contested from Calangute and his wife from Siolim, the two neighbouring areas, which boast Goa’s most-sought-after commercial properties.

By these elections, Lobo’s assets had increased to nearly ₹93 crore, according to the affidavit filed before the Election Commission. He also emerged as one of the main Christian faces of the party for the polls. Both Lobo and his wife won even as several other Congress candidates lost.

According to his election affidavit, Lobo owns 16 commercial ventures including Resort Terra Paraiso, a boutique hotel, high-end luxury villas, a 16-room hotel and restaurant, De Candolim Deck, another restaurant, a supermarket, a beach shack, a pharmacy, some shops and offices, and other commercial ventures worth a total of ₹45 crore. Lobo also owned agricultural land valued at ₹1.157 crore and 21 different plots of non-agricultural land valued at ₹9.22 crore.

“Lobo began small when he started off, by his own admission, washing dishes in a restaurant and from there he ventured into a pottery business which was not doing spectacularly well but kept him afloat,” said a former aide, who asked not to be named.

“Lobo’s big break came in the form of a beachside café, Café Looda, in Anjuna that was a hit with the foreign tourists especially on Wednesday nights owing to its proximity to the night bazaar that was also very popular. The parties at the café used to go on all through the night with live music, even drugs,” he added, asking not to be named.

Lobo has denied involvement in the drug trade. “Cafe Looda was famous as a destination for lively music. I was never involved in the drug trade,” he said.

From the beachside cafe, Lobo began to expand first becoming a partner at Nazri Resort, a hotel in Calangute, before launching his own ventures including two hotels, four restaurants, and a supermarket. He never looked back.

Lobo’s rise dwarfed that of other businessmen with political ambitions in the area, including former Congress MLA Agnelo Fernandes; Anthony Menezes, whom Lobo once worked for; and Joseph Sequeira, who saw his political clout in Calangute ( a village he was once the sarpanch of for more than 20 years) vanish with Lobo’s rise.

“Rising up is never easy especially if you have to start from scratch and especially in a place such as Goa. But I took it up as a challenge and have proven myself,” Lobo said.

POLITICAL SWING

Lobo appeared to have taken a calculated risk when he switched from the BJP, a party that he was a member of for more than 15 years, of which 10 he spent as a party MLA and three as a member of the district panchayat. Lobo was earlier a member of the Congress, but quit the party in 2005 for the BJP in a bid to unseat the then Congress strongman from the area, Fernandes.

Lobo’s “countercurrent” move -- he was the only winnable candidate who moved in the opposite direction at a time when many candidates including sitting MLAs were joining the BJP — came about, people say, because the party denied his wife Delilah Lobo a ticket. Lobo strongly refuted the charge at the time, claiming his wife had neither sought for the ticket nor was willing to accept the BJP ticket — but said that she would be contesting.

“Lobo’s switch over earlier this year provided a boost to the Congress considering he was one of only two candidates the party had at the time -- the other being former chief minister Digambar Kamat — who had political heft,” conceded a Congress leader who asked not to be named.

Lobo proved his mettle by ensuring he won from his constituency; his wife won from Siolim — the first time the Congress won the constituency; and his aide Kedar Naik won from the neighbouring Saligao constituency. The third candidate he sponsored, Sudhir Kandolkar in Mapusa, lost to the BJP’s Joshua de Souza.

Roshan Mathias, who contested the elections earlier this year as one of Lobo’s rivals alleged that his success at the polls was on account of money power and standing as a businessman.

“He uses his wealth to help people tide over their daily needs. Gives them money to buy taxis, offers jobs to the youth at his businesses as well as in agencies that take government contracts and in his security agency. This leaves the voters indebted to him and in turn they vote for him,” Mathias said.

“He also made a lot of promises telling people he would regularise their houses, businesses, etc many of which are illegal,” he added. Lobo denies the charges.

“Ultimately politics in Goa is about land and even though there may be several parties there is only one underlying party in Goa and that is the party of land dealers and brokers and grabbers. Lobo belongs to that party and ultimately, he will go back to where the power is,” Sandesh Prabhudesai, who authored a book on Goa’s elections said.

The Congress is now seeking to disqualify both Lobo and Kamat. Goa Congress president Amit Patkar said the two indulged in the “anti-party activities” which amounted to them voluntarily giving up their membership of the party. “We have filed a disqualification petition against two senior leaders because voluntarily they have given up their membership of their party. There is a Supreme Court judgement of 2020 which says that any anti-party activity amounts to voluntarily giving up their membership,” Patkar said.

The Congress has not filed disqualification petition against Delilah saying they have not come up with her role the defection attempt.

“Lobo currently finds himself between a rock and a hard place. With his hobnobbing with the BJP out in the open, the Congress appears to be keeping him at a distance now. One wonders whether the party will back him at all, amid minister Vishwajit Rane’s attack on Lobo’s property deals and businesses,” political analyst Mayabhushan Nagvenkar said, referring to Goa health and urban planning minister Rane’s targeting Lobo for conversion of green zones into settlement zones, where one can build residential homes.

He added that Lobo was running out of options.

Lobo, for his part, says he has embraced his role as a Congressman. “We have been elected on a Congress ticket and intend to complete the full five-year term,” he said on July 12.

But analysts feel the statement is just meant for public consumption, and that it is a matter of time before he rejoins the BJP.