Manohar Parrikar (born December 13, 1955, Mapusa, Goa) is an Indian politician and the Chief Minister of Goa

from 2000 to 2005. He is a graduate from IIT Bombay, the first IIT graduate to become the Chief Minister of any Indian state ever. He is from the Bharatiya Janata Party, the first from his party to become the Chief Minister. He was first elected to the Second Legislative Assembly of the State of Goa in 1994. He was the leader of the opposition from June to November 1999. He first became the Chief Minister of Goa on October 24, 2000 but could only last till February 27, 2002. In June 2002, he was re-elected to the assembly and was elected Chief Minister again (on June 5, 2002). He is credited with bringing the BJP to power in Goa. He is also credited with single handedly bringing the IFFI (International Film Festival of India) to Goa, and creating more international quality infrastructure in Goa for the event in a short time than any other former government.He was instrumental in initiating various social upliftment schemes like Dayanand Samajik Suraksha Yojana , which provides financial assistance to senior citizens, the Cyberage Scheme which provides computers to students thus ushering in a tech-ready student community, CM Rojgar Yojana, etc. Widely respected even amongst his rivals, his personal integrity is beyond doubt, a rare attribute in politics. Known to be a man of action and principles, Mr.Parrikar is known as Mr. Clean in Goa. On January 29, 2005, his government was reduced to a minority after 4 BJP MLAs resigned from the House. Parrikar claimed that he could prove his majority, but in February 2005, he did lose his position. After continued disputes, the state was put under president's rule in March 2005, but in June 2005, opposition leader Pratapsing Rane was allowed to become chief minister.

Awards[edit]
2012: CNN-IBN Indian of the Year in politics category

Dressed in a plain shirt and trousers, an inconspicuous man entered the logistics section of the state mines and geology department, and enquired about the royalty collection for the previous financial year. The staff was bewildered, as they never expected the chief minister would drop by without a word or notice. Manorial Parrikar, who was elected as Goa's CM earlier this year, has taken to the mission of getting the state's affairs in order with great zeal and humility. Save for a personal security officer, the CM goes about the state without the huge protective entourage that comes with his position.

Goa chief minister Manohar Parrikar goes pillion-riding on a scooter driven by Benaulim legislator Caetan Silva

Sources say Parrikar draws inspiration from the 2001-Anil Kapoor starrer Nayak, which details the story of a common man desirous of cleaning the system, who takes charge as CM for a day in a dare with the incumbent. But far from the movie's idealistic premise, Parrikar is going about his charge, conscious of the ground realities. 'People ask me why I am not suspending officers who have been proved to be corrupt. I can't do that because I am already facing a shortage of officers. There are so many of them who are yet to be promoted and so many vacancies not filled,' the IIT Mumbai alumnus said. Taking charge of a state reeling under reports of a mining scam, Parrikar began his clean-up drive by suspending the director of mines and geology Arvind Lolienkar, said to be neck deep in corruption. Following this, he began eliminating rogue mining traders to control illegal mining. He suspended licenses of all the traders and asked each one to re-apply. Only the genuine ones re-applied. Public Works Department (PWD), which had become a hub of corruption, also faced Parrikar's onslaught when a senior officer and a couple of juniors were suspended. Besides this, block development officers, panchayat secretaries and lower rank staff involved in malpractices have also begun to feel the heat. This isn't the sole feather in the BJP leader's cap though. He struck just the right chord with the state's people when he reduced the tax on petrol to bring down its price by `11. Since then his popularity graph has been constantly rising with each passing day. He travels on a Tata Innova given to him when he was the leader of the Opposition. And icing on the cake is the fact that he is available for general public through his official email ID which he accesses daily, in keeping with his strengthening image as a people's leader.

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On the morning of his swearing in on March 9, just before the ides of March, the Chief Minister designate Manohar Parrikar was already grappling with power. Or the collapse of it. There was a complete failure of the western grid and parts of North Goa, including Panjim had plunged into darkness. But the time he reached the Campal ground for his swearing in, power was restored. And a little later, political power was officially wrested as the balance of power changed hands from the vanquished Congress to the elected BJP. Nine months later, while still riding high on a mandate that was emphatically delivered to him, Parrikar himself will admit that he sees grid failures. Its an everyday exercised to keep Goa from having a grid failure. The mining shut down, the consequences on the economy may have slowed down advances on meeting promises, but where he has been found wanting is in the planning the big picture of growth and development. Parrikar is not just another Chief Minister. He is also not a BJP Chief Minister. The Parrikar of old who allegedly had agendas and wore saffron on his sleeve is not a figure that is envisaged, even in jest. And thats because this mandate has with it, given him a much larger canvas. Shall we say a Parrikar -esque canvas. He is being judged not as a Chief Minister. But as Manohar Parrikar. His delivery report is not based on whether the CM of Goa has delivered, but whether this reign has been Parrikar -esque. Has Manohar Parrikar managed to live up to his own magnificent grandeur of governance? Sadly not, but that doesnt mean he has failed. It just means that he has been unable to understand that deadlines and delivery need to be directly proportional to dialogues, when he is Manohar Parrikar. He set himself too hard when he didnt need to. The little Manohar of Mapusa, who hated to lose and knew that he was better than the rest, is still there. He is mellow, extremely polite and gracious, absolutely incorruptible and works from 6 in the morning till way past midnight, as if theres no tomorrow. But Goa has a short fuse, the length of which he himself has shortened by his rapid promises. We chose to do our first ever check on Manohar Parrikars performance, partly because nine months is a good benchmark to deliver in life and in governance, but mainly because some of the key deadlines, on which he asked himself to be monitored, have lapsed. And while we are not hanging him for it, we are asking questions and the right ones. Its tempting to go the way most examiners of Parrikar, including those in the media, by looking at his key promises of a Lokayukta, a good Regional Plan and zero tolerance of corruption. We have done that too, but before doing just that, we played back the audio tape of Parrikars first speech as Goas new Chief Minister, just after he was sworn in. It was short and still he raised a very emotive issue, which got buried by other popular announcement of zero tolerance to corruption. Looking at the huge multitudes that looked at him with a hope never seen before, sweating in the March sunshine but breathing easy, Parrikar first said. No one will have to pay a bribe to get jobs. And he then said, We will create opportunities for our young to come back. Our youth will not have to leave Goa to work. We will give them a golden Goa. No one clapped initially before they all did. Becaus e no one believed that a Chief Minister actually had this big picture. Today with mining effectively shut for a couple of years and the industry mood on a huge downswing with new investments not coming in, and old ones moving out, does he have a plan to create more jobs and employment? Does he have a plan for growth and industrialisation. Is he working towards investments in FMCG manufacturing and using our vast port resources? The barometer of measuring a Parrikar-esque government needs to be different from measuring just a Goan government. And this is where signs area disturbing. This year 1270 engineering students will pass out from the GEC, PCC, RIET (Shiroda) and Don Bosco, as opposed to just 810 two years ago. While the number of student pass outs are increasing by 200 each year, what is Goa giving them? Where are the world class training facilities, opportunities for research and most importantly jobs? Industry is on a downturn. And we dont have an industrial policy. This is a big ticket move and should have got priority at par with Laadli Laxmi, DSS and Griha Lakshmi schemes. Populist schemes never make everyone popular. While one section feels that the schemes have been cornered by the ruling party, the other feels that

they have not been honestly implemented. As the leader of the anti-Parrikar pack Vijay Sardesai says, He has put limits on the scheme for housewives, putting a cap of eligibility to those with an income of less than 3 lakhs. Large sections of government servants who voted for him will be ineligible. A Parrikar -esque move demands big ticket decisions on industry, tourism, employment and growth. Parrikar hasnt honestly done so. For inst ance, he handpicked one of finest tourism bureaucrats of the country, Mathew Samuels, as he moved from a superb stint in Pondicherry to head tourism. He began by a initiating a credible exercise, where advertising agencies would be picked on creative merit at the best cost to brand Goa. He had a run in with a local cartel that cornered all advertising, which had nothing to do with branding, but releasing ads. Soon, the new minister and the old coterie intervened. Samuels specific circulars on transparency were asked to be withdrawn officially and the Chief Minister told him politely that he had to go. The easy option was to let Samuels go. The difficult one would have been to make him stay to do the big canvas paint and get a world class policy in place. Doing the difficult things should have come easy. They havent. While our boxes on specific issues tell the micro stories, this essay will be incomplete without a core occurrence which has dominated his gestation period of nine months. Rapid fire promises with careless abandon. Lokayukta in 100 days. A Regional Plan by December and then January. A complete solution to mining. Manohar Parrikar doesnt need to try so hard to be efficient. He is setting targets that he is unable to hold himself accountable to. He should listen to his speech on March 9 I do not have a magic wand (he used the phrase jaadu ki chari). So why did he start saying what he didnt believe in. As Parrikar grows on the job, he needs to fix two main things the Regional Plan, because Goas future planning needs a credible, all inclusive base development that gives the people of Goa a chance, and a Lok Ayukta because the tent of corruption in the past government needs an independent institutional 24x7 action. Non action is reaching levels of negligence, when we as a newspaper have done four covers on the corruption in the PWD and no questions have been asked. But the big thing he needs to fix is give Goa a real future. A future where your kids come home and theres more than enough money in the bank. Where goods are manufactured and move out. Where Goa prospers. Manohar Parrikar needs to get Parrikar-esque.