PANJIM: MLAs Lavu Mamledar and Naresh Sawal on Sunday accused the BJP of giving false promise to Marathi lovers that it would accord official language status to Marathi on coming to power.
Mamledar belongs to MGP which is a partner in the ruling coalition, while Sawal is an Independent representing Bicholim and who tabled a private member bill for according official language status to Marathi.
Both the MLAs were speaking at a convention held in Panjim on Sunday organised by Marathi Rajbhasha Samiti demanding that a special session of the assembly be convened to pass a resolution according official language status to Marathi.
On the occasion, Mamledar said that Marathi lovers have been cheated by successive governments in Goa and who used them as a tool to win election.
“On behalf of MGP, I assure that Marathi will get the status of official language on par with Konkani. I am not against Konkani; we never said we don’t want Konkani, but it is the right of Marathi lovers to have Marathi official language status,” Mamledar said.
He said that in the past Salcete was the only place where people were reading Konkani, but now even there the people and especially Christians are reading Marathi newspapers.
Sawal, who is likely to join the MGP, said that BJP has failed to keep up its promise to Marathi lovers – a promise made for winning the 2012 assembly polls.
“I have placed the sentiments of Marathi lovers in the assembly in a private member bill and it will be passed I feel,” he said.
Marathi protagonists have threatened to work against the BJP to defeat it at ensuing assembly polls if they failed to pass the amendment legislation in a special two-day assembly session before the polls.
Almost all speakers threatened the ruling BJP government with severe consequences if it failed to meet their demand.
G R Dhawlikar, president of the Marathi Rajbhasha Samiti (MRS), said that the status of official language to the state should be taken by the experts whereas people like Manohar Parrikar, Sripad Naik and Laxmikant Parsekar are not well qualified to take such decision.
Dhawalikar appealed to the Christian community not to misunderstand that the status of Konkani would go down. “We are not against Konkani. What we want is equal status for Marathi; both the languages should get the same status,” he said.
