Team Herald
MARGAO: Aam Aadmi Goa Convenor Elvis Gomes addressing party volunteers at a function held to commemorate Goa Liberation Day lamented the absolute lack of opposition in Goa and said there was a deep yearning amongst the people for an alternative.
Accusing the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party of annihilating dissent, he said this was the strategy of the party not only in Goa but the whole country.
“At a time when the BJP and its allied partners are out to sell Goa to crony capitalists, the Congress, which is the principal opposition is virtually silent,” Gomes said while installing primary units of Quepem, Curchorem and Salcete.
He said that AAP was working silently to build its party organisation right from the grassroots level in the State to overhaul of the system.
Pointing out that the tenet of the party was swaraj, he said that AAP believed in bottom-up structure and therefore concentrates on building up booth level volunteers to carry out the political campaigns to liberate the people of Goa from the present morass.
Explaining the importance of creating primary units in all the constituencies, State secretary Pradip Padgaonkar said he was overwhelmed by the fact that electoral defeats and the fund crunch has not dampened the spirit as the party is preparing its network of volunteers at the booth level.
Gurkho Velip, former Khola sarpanch who was the chief guest, expressed his anguish that successive governments that ruled Goa neglected the tribal community that continues to remain backward even after so many years of liberation.
“There is no respite of Liberation to us, the tribals, as no government has looked into our welfare but merely used us as vote bank. So many villages dominated by the ST community do not have basic infrastructure like water, sanitation, electricity and roads,” said the village elder (Budvont) who served as sarpanch for 17 years.
Condemning the government for attempting to silence the gram sabhas in its scheme of not listening to dissent, he appealed to the tribal community to stop falling prey to the traditional political parties and appealed to them to look for an alternative.
At the meeting with senior citizens held after the programme Maclean Coutinho said if necessary the party would launch an agitation to get the government to heed to the pleas of senior citizens.
Others who spoke on the occasion were Siddhart Karapurkar, Rodney Almeida, Ramiro Mascarenhas, Tribio Goes and Aureia Ferandes.
