Team Herald
MARGAO: Nationalist Congress Party MLA Churchill Alemao today congratulated Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar for deciding to file a revision application before the Apex court to permit dhirios in Goa and demanded that if permitted the State should construct a stadium to conduct this sport in a proper manner.
He said that bullfights or dhirios as they are called in Goa is nothing but a sport involving animals and permitting the animals to give vent to their own cravings unlike the Spanish billfights where the matadors actually kill the animal.
“I owned a fighter bull and buffalo and my bull actually destroyed three young coconut plants when it was tied to them after the dhirios were stopped in Goa,” he said recalling that he had fought with Maneka Gandhi that there was no cruelty of animals involved in dhirios.
Pointing out that dhirios is a sport just like boxing wherein the former the battle is between animals while in the latter it is between humans he asked whether human life has lesser value than animals as even in boxing there is bleeding and injury.
“In fact some people like the Caiado brothers had their fighting animals housed is structures that were better than the houses they lived in,” he said adding that Manohar Parrikar’s name will remain immortal if he succeeds in getting the apex court’s approval.
“The chief minister not only knows that dhirios is a sport but also understands the risk people take to organise these fights clandestinely at present,” he said adding that if permitted the dhirios should be organised in a stadium which should be constructed by the government.
“Not only will the government earn some revenue by organising dhirios in the stadium as thousands will flock to see them but it will also bring about a discipline and ensure that they do not clash with football, the other passion of Goans,” he said recalling that in 1994 he had proposed that a stadium be constructed at Castanha in Colva to hold dhirios.
He also recalled having a pitched fight with Maneka Gandhi then on grounds that there was no cruelty to animals involved in dhirios but instead it was channelising the animals’ raw energy in a proper manner.
While congratulating Manohar Parrikar on his decision regarding dhirios he said he also prayed that he gets enlightened on the need to have Dr Jack de Sequeira’s statue in the Assembly Complex. “We need to have only two statues in the complex one of the first chief minister of Goa and the other of the person responsible for saving Goa from being merged with Maharashtra,” he said.
“There is no doubt that Dr Jack was the leader of the Opinion Poll and if it was not for him none of us 40 would be known as MLAs of Goa and that is what we have to recognise and be grateful to him for,” he said adding that someday or the other Dr Jack de Sequeira’s statue will come up in the assembly complex.
