Team Herald
MAPUSA: The elections are over, the dust has settled, it’s time for the serious business of establishing power.
In a letter to Mapusa Police, the North Goa Planning and Development Authority, controlled by the Vishwajit Rane headed Town and Country Planning Department, has requested the Mapusa Police to file FIR against Calangute MLA Michael Lobo and Siolim MLA Delilah Lobo for alleged illegal mud filling in a low-lying area.
The letter states that a complaint was received from Rama Ganesh Matondkar stating that his property of Parra village did not have access to his field which was blocked by Michael Lobo and Delilah Lobo.
Accordingly, the site was inspected by Matondkar and noticed that property bearing Survey Numbers 10/8 and 10/10 of Parra village are filled up to adjoining road level and mud filling is done of four metres width approx. in Survey No. 10/9 of Para without taking permission under Section 17-A of Town and Country Planning Act 1974.
Further, Matondkar had filed a writ petition before High Court against the land filling. The High Court by an order dated March 2, 2022 directed the NGPDA to act and file an FIR for filling mud in a low-lying paddy field bearing Survey Numbers 10/8, 9, 10 of Parra village under Section 17-B of the Town and Country Planning Act 1974.
Meanwhile, the issue has taken political colour. Calangute MLA Michael Lobo, who is a former NGPDA chairperson, charged TCP Minister Vishwajit Rane with politically targeting him by filling a FIR against him in the alleged hill cutting case.
“There is nothing in the case as it has been portrayed by the minister. I have all the permissions. This is an attempt to silence me as a leader of the opposition,” Lobo said.
He also charged Rane with trying to scare businessmen in the State by scrapping ODPs prepared by his own minister. “He may be doing this to tell his leaders that he has started work and is an efficient leader,” Lobo said.
The AICC desk In charge Dinesh Gundu Rao tweeted that the filing of the FIR (proposed) “is an act of vindictive politics by minster @visrane to which Minister Rane tweeted back, “Corruption, breaking of laws, violation for self-development may have been a way of life for the #Congress but not for # BJP.”
Lobo, reacting to the Rane’s reply tweet quipped, “The post of TCP minister Vishwajit Rane is wrong and fake. Work on this property has been carried out by taking all the permissions where we have a plantation of high breed vegetables for the hotel industry. We have a construction license for the pump house from the panchayat, permission from the Health Department, and other permissions. We have no intention of having any construction on this land.”
He added, “Rane is trying to defame us or maybe, he is in the race for something beyond what he is right now and prove (to his) leaders that he has started working in Goa.”
He further said, “Why is he calling stakeholders as land mafia if people are getting all the approvals to carry out business? This is a 2020 issue and if I was at fault then I would have closed the issue as a minister but I did not do so because I am not at fault.”
Addressing the media, Lobo said, “I am being targeted. Rane is a businessman and is targeting an opposition leader who has a business. Or is he trying to target investing businessmen or scare them? I don’t know why he is getting personal.”
Lobo said that he would write to the Chief Minister on this issue and ask why the Opposition is getting targeted in this manner.