MARGAO: The Congress Party on Wednesday condemned Power Minister Nilesh Cabral for threatening to throw out of Goa, environmental activist Claude Alvares.
Addressing a press conference here, Congress spokesperson Swati Kerkar said, “The Congress party supports the mining dependents but that doesn’t mean that Nilesh Cabral can make any statement he wants.”
“This is a democracy and everyone is free to approach the courts. Claude Alvares did not take any step against the interest of Goa and had filed the case in order to enforce the law. I want to ask Cabral who had started the inquiry into the mining scam. When Congress party was ruling, it was Manohar Parrikar who initiated the inquiry which had ‘revealed’ the scam,” she said.
Kerkar pointed out that the BJP is ruling in the Centre and the State and for the last two terms and that they have been fooling the people by promising them that they would sort out the issue and restart mining.
“Now their own Central government has said that they cannot bring any law to restart mining (without auction) and in order to hide this fact, Cabral has made a threat against Alvares,” Kerkar said.
Advising Cabral not to use threatening language, she demanded police protection to Alvares.
“Anyone who speaks against BJP is threatened. Because of such attitude, they have been rejected in four States,” she said.
