was issued, two new
political parties came into being and declared their
election platforms. One was the United Goans, led by
Dr. Jack de Sequeira, which stood for a separate state
for Goa. The other was the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party,
with Dayanand Bandodkar at its helm, which stood for
Goa's merger with Maharashtra. The Congress, waffling
in between, promised that Goans would be consulted
about its future in the Indian union.

The elder Dempo let it be known that his paper would
support the Congress in the elections and, therefore,
all news coverage must be oriented towards Congress
candidates. And as the chief reporter at the paper, it
fell to my lot to deliver the news with this bias. On
the campaign trail, I traveled the length and breadth
of Goa, speaking to Congress candidates and often
manufacturing 'news' that purported to show that
people, by and large, were in favor of Congress
candidates. Lambert and I even drove to Pernem one day
to see how Vaikuntrao's campaign was coming along.

However, my one dependable contact was none other than
the 50-year-old Purushottam Kakodkar. His office in
Panjim was open to me at any hour of the day. Knowing
that our paper was solidly behind him, he was generous
with his time and forthcoming, giving me full access to
campaign reports sent to head office from the various
constituencies. During the campaign, Lal Bahadur Shastri,
the Indian Home Minister, visited Goa to lend his
support to the Congress candidates. Kakodkar arranged
for me an exclusive interview with the minister. In the
interview, Shastri affirmed that a separate status for
Goa was on the cards. A day after my story appeared on
the front page, Kakodkar told me that Shastri was
pleased with my report and had asked him to extend his
congratulations to me. I was more than touched by this
solicitude. I was feeling giddy, riding on the carousel
of a mutual admiration society.

My friend Ben Saldanha of PTI in Panjim filed a report
based on my interview; so did Joshi of The Times of India
bureau. As a representative of a news agency, Saldanha,
of course, had to be objective and he was. As a
matter of fact, he would often feed me stories about
the other two parties, based on the 'inside'
information he had received. He himself couldn't use
that information for his news agency, but I could. And
whenever I mentioned this 'fact' to my editors, I was
told to just let it pass.

Now, as the campaign was ge