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Goa Statehood Day: How Goans made the choice to have a separate identity?

On the occasion of the 35th Goa Statehood Day on May 30, President Ram Nath Kovind will preside over the celebrations at the Raj Bhawan in Goa this year. On Goa Statehood Day 2022, the President of India will also lay the groundwork for the new Raj Bhawan building in Panaji, the state capital. To commemorate the event, Goa CM Promod Sawant previously stated that the state government will honour all Goa Chief Ministers to date, as well as people who have contributed to the expansion of agriculture, industry, education, and sports in the state.

History 
Goa Statehood Day is observed on May 30th since it was on this date in 1987 that Goa ceased to be a Union Territory and became India’s 25th state. On December 19, 1961, Goa was acquired by India and emancipated from Portuguese dominion after 451 years. It, along with Daman and Diu, became a Union Territory under the President of India.

Major-General KP Candeth was appointed military governor, and he was later appointed as an informal Consultative Council of 29 individuals to help the governor in administering the region. Dayanand Bandodkar was appointed as Goa, Daman, and Diu’s first Chief Minister. Despite significant influx from the neighboring state of Maharashtra in the 1960s, an Opinion Poll conducted in 1967 revealed that Goans preferred to remain independent and not be united with Maharashtra.

On May 30, 1987, more than 20 years after the Opinion Poll, Goa was designated as an independent state. This was only feasible because Goa voted in favor of independence in the 1967 Opinion Poll. ‘ It is unusual that we commemorate Statehood Day but not the Opinion Poll that permitted that to happen,’ said Parag Parobo, a history professor at Goa University, according to the Economic Times.

Pratapsingh Rane, who had previously served as Chief Minister, was chosen as the new state’s Chief Minister. A variety of cultural activities are held to commemorate Goa Statehood Day. Last year, however, Goans were unable to celebrate Statehood Day because to a curfew enforced as a result of the COVID-19 epidemic.

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