BJP leader Pramod Sawant was sworn in as the chief minister of Goa on Monday in a ceremony that was attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi besides BJP chief ministers, including the newly sworn in chief minister of Uttarakhand Pushkar Singh Dhami, the chief minister of Karnataka BS Bommai, Hemant Biswa Sarma the CM of Assam among others.
“The BJP had declared me as a CM (candidate) and I am thankful to the central leadership that they gave me another opportunity. I am not an accidental CM, I am not selected but elected,” said Sawant, who was for a long time taunted for being an ‘accidental’ CM having been chosen to lead Goa after the demise of Manohar Parrikar.
Besides Sawant, eight other BJP legislators led by Vishwajit Rane, who will be the senior most minister in the cabinet after Sawant, were sworn in. They are Mauvin Godinho, Ravi Naik, Nilesh Cabral, Subhash Shirodkar, Rohan Khaunte Govind Gaude and Atanasio Monserrate.
Rane, Godinho, Cabral and Gaude are returning to the cabinet with Gaude now a member of the cabinet as a BJP MLA, having been elected as an Independent back in 2017 and offering his support to the then Parrikar-led government.
Ravi Naik and Subhash Shirodkar, two MLAs who were elected on Congress tickets back in 2017 but who jumped ship at different points during the last tenure have also made it to the cabinet. Ravi Naik, who served twice as a Congress chief minister of Goa, and Subhash Shirodkar also a former minister in various Congress led governments in the past making the cut.
{{/usCountry}}Ravi Naik and Subhash Shirodkar, two MLAs who were elected on Congress tickets back in 2017 but who jumped ship at different points during the last tenure have also made it to the cabinet. Ravi Naik, who served twice as a Congress chief minister of Goa, and Subhash Shirodkar also a former minister in various Congress led governments in the past making the cut.
{{/usCountry}}Rohan Khaunte too has served as a minister under former chief minister Manohar Parrikar but was dropped by Sawant in 2019 while Atanasio Monserrate is returning to the cabinet after a decade long gap having previously served as minister during the Congress government led by Digambar Kamat.
With this, nine of the 12 slots in the cabinet have been filled leaving three slots all of which are expected to go to allies including one to the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak party and one each to two Independents.
Sawant was first appointed chief minister in 2019, following the death of then CM late Manohar Parrikar and had to face rebuke from his critics who called him an “accidental chief minister”.
Ministers who were sworn in remained tight-lipped about the portfolios they were hoping to be allocated instead saying that they would leave it to the discretion of the CM.
“I was a minister for the past three years and I intend to take forward the work I have been doing. Whatever portfolio I am allotted I will work to take the work forward,” Cabral, who was power and environment minister in the outgoing cabinet, said.
The cabinet includes three ‘Catholic’ faces -- Godinho, Cabral and Monserrate, while it includes Ravi Naik as the lone face from the state’s numerically significant Bhandari Samaj.
Crucially, however, besides Sawant all the ministers in the cabinet have history with the Congress party save for Rohan Khaunte who was an Independent MLA before joining the BJP.
Three slots in the cabinet have gone to legislators representing the Ponda taluka -- Gaude representing Priol, Naik representing Ponda and Shirodkar representing Shiroda while state’s largest taluka -- the Catholic dominated Salcete taluka has got none so far.
After the swearing in ceremony, Sawant said that among his priorities would be to take forward Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision for Atmanirbhar Bharat through its local adaptation Swayampurna Goa.
“The mission Swayampurna Goa 2.0 has started. We had focussed on infrastructure development and human development. I hope the Centre will support us even more,” Sawant told reporters after the swearing-in ceremony.