MARGAO: Refuting allegations made by former Chief minister and MP Churchill Alemao regarding his role in preventing Romi Konkani from gaining official status, Former MLA Uday Bhembre alleged that Alemao had distorted the facts of history or was grossly misinformed.
Bhembre clarified that he was part of the Konkani Porjecho Awaz movement, which advocated for Konkani as Goa’s official language, without any specific script in mind.
He denied prior knowledge or support for a bill granting official status solely to the Devanagari script, contrary to Alemao’s claims.
Reacting to Bhembre’s comments, Global Konknni Forum president Kennedy Afonso said, “In his reply to Churchill’s statement, Uday Bhembre had said that at the time of the Konknni movement, the question of Script never arose, and everyone fought unitedly. If so, when Romi was not accepted in the Official Language Act, why then did the KPA leaders not protest and demand equal status for Roman Script?”
Afonso said, “If Uday Bhembre feels that Romi Script has been discriminated , and injustice done to it, why doesn’t he and other KPA leaders from the majority community who are still alive, like Mauzo, make a statement saying that the govt should reconsider the issue after 36 years.”
Kennedy said, “On the Advisory Board of Konkani from 1978 to 1983, most of the KPA leaders were on the Committee. They had unanimously decided on November 21, 1981, recommended that Devnagari should remain the script of Konknni. If so, these KPA members of the majority community, fooled the leaders of minority community, and used them and the people, to achieve their objective of making Konknni as official language, knowing fully well that they will fool them at the end of the movement, by making Devnagari as the only official script of Konknni.”
“Once the Bill was passed, these majority community KPA leaders changed the narrative to say that if we demand for Roman Script, the Marathi lobby might win, and convince them that it’s best to keep quiet,” Afonso added.
Afonso said, “Uday Bhembre bab, you and other KPA members can still say, yes an injustice is done to Romi, which needs to be rectified!”
