PANJIM, SEPT 22
The Nationalist Congress Party on Wednesday dared Youth Congress chief Sankalp Amonkar to produce evidence of corruption against its minister Jose Philip D’Souza or even file a complaint.
The NCP will give a befitting reply to Amonkar, said spokesperson of the party Trajano D’Mello, who has reacted sharply to some of the utterances made by the youth leader after the September 5 convention in Mapusa where Jose Philip spoke of strengthening his party’s base in all 40 constituencies.
The NCP Spokesperson, however, indicated they may now not go ahead with the filing of the complaint against Amonkar for allegedly misappropriating the Canacona relief fund collected by GPYC.
Explaining this D’Mello observed there was a reason behind not filing the complaint, but this doesn’t mean they were not concerned about where the relief money has gone. Political ethics keep us back from filing the complaint, he stated and added, “The money was for the people and there is something called the people’s court. Let people too decide on the issue in their court and call for probity and accountability from the youth leader.”
He has once again lashed at Amonkar and some of the leaders for being naïve in their utterances about the alliance and called their political history as poor. “Let me recall the 2002 assembly elections when the Congress decided to go alone and failed to become the single largest party,” he reminded.
He said in that year Saligao went to NCP and Congress lost Tivim, Siolim and Vasco to the Bharatiya Janata Party which came to power. NCP made big inroads in these constituencies and the division of votes gave BJP the advantage, he stated.
So, he mentioned, the alliance was no more a choice of the local leaders but a necessity endorsed by Congress leader Sonia Gandhi and NCP Supremo Sharad Pawar to keep communal forces at bay. “I say with conviction there are hired agents of communal forces who have infiltrated into the Congress,” he asserted.
D’Mello said Amonkar, who has spoken against the alliance, should accept NCP’s challenge of contesting the municipal elections on his home turf in Vasco and win.
