Panaji: A master of witty anecdotes, Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar once liberally used a popular bikini adage to make a point about governance and number crunching. "Statistics are like a woman wearing a bikini. What they reveal is vital. What they hide is even more vital," Parrikar would often say to peals of laughter from his acolytes.
But judging by the goings-on over the last two months or so, the two-piece bathing accessory now appears to have come to haunt Parrikar's Bharatiya Janata Party-led coalition government. It may sound ridiculous, but the bikini controversy has triggered a churning and a split in the conservative end of Goa's political axis.