TEAM HERALD
teamherald@herald-goa.com
PANJIM: The Bharatiya Janata Party is using its Catholic MLAs to discredit the Church and priests, the Nationalist Congress Party has alleged, while defending the Church for fulfilling its moral obligation of asking the people to vote.
Addressing a press conference, NCP leaders hit out at Deputy Chief Minister Francisco D’Souza for saying the fear among minorities was unfounded on the grounds that Modi was thrice elected as Chief Minister of Gujarat. This is evident that D’Souza has “lost his mental balance”, the party asserted.
“The church is only exercising its moral right in asking people to vote against communal forces,” NCP president Nilkant Halarnkar said adding that BJP was using the Catholic MLAs to discredit Church and priests.
“During the last election when the Church exercised it moral right and asked the faithful to vote against corruption, why were these (BJP) MLAs silent?” Halarnkar asked.
At least two BJP leaders, including the deputy chief minister, had blamed the Church for rekindling the communal debate.
Another independent MLA Caetano Silva who supports the BJP government, questioned why the Church woke up only a few weeks before elections and not months earlier.
“The communal debate is a national debate and has not been kindled because the Church raked it up. The church is only performing its moral duty,” NCP vice president Trajano chipped in saying that the debate is on irrespective of whether the Goa church took it up or not.
Caitu was engaged in a tussle with the Colva parish priest who put spokes in his plans for building a ground in the fields in front of the Colva Church.
After the Church’s call to vote for ‘secular’ candidates, the BJP has decisively changed its election strategy asking people to vote for the development brought out by Manohar Parrikar rather than projecting Modi as the prime minister.
