TEAM HERALD
teamherald@herald-goa.com
MARGAO: Former Margao Municipal Chairperson Arthur D’silva will head the Margao Carnival Celebration Committee.
Arthur’s name got the stamp of approval at a meeting of the Councillors held in the chamber of Chairperson Dayanand Deulkar. The meeting, sources said, witnesses heated exchanges between Councillors backing Arthur’s candidature for the coveted post and former vice-Chairperson Pratima Coutinho, both part of the ruling 14-member group.
The Arthur group slammed Pratima for going to the media on the Carnival committee issue, an allegation which she firmly rejected as baseless. Sources said that Pratima had come out openly against Arthur’s taking over the reigns of the Carnival panel.
She later told the media that Councillor Avinash Shirodkar had proposed her name for the post of carnival committee, but she refused to accept the post. “On the contrary, I even suggested to Arthur, who himself claimed the post, that since he has occupied a higher post of Civic Chairperson, he should not demote himself by showing interest in the Carnival Committee’, Pratima said.
Meanwhile, treasurer of last year’s Margao Carnival Committee and Councillor Dadi Mayenkar said that the committee had not failed to clear the payments of the contractors and blamed the government for the delay in clearing the payments. He, however, said that since the government has cleared the cheque amounting to Rs five lakh, the Civic body has cleared the payment of the contractor.
“The Civic body cannot be blamed of the delay in the payments since there was a huge delay from the government side,” Mayendkar added.
