PANJIM: Aam Aadmi Party Goa Convenor Rahul Mhambre on Monday strongly condemned Union Tourism Minister G Kishan Reddy for branding Goa as the “casino capital” of the country.
The Union Tourism Minister during his recent visit to the State said, “People have already given ‘casino capital’ title to Goa and the Centre was open to declaring it as the ‘casino capital of India’, if it benefits the State.” Mhambre stated that the Union Tourism Minister himself stating that Goa should be made country’s casino capital is no surprise to Goa. It is well known that casinos are always funded by BJP all this while.
He said, “The BJP party had launched an agitation against casinos ahead of the Assembly elections in 2012. BJP had fought the elections on the issue of removing offshore casinos from River Mandovi, but over the past 10 years despite running the government, the party has failed to relocate them. Every six months, the State government takes a decision to grant an extension to them to continue in River Mandovi.”
Currently, Goa Tourism Development Corporation (GTDC) plans to set up a mega entertainment village spread over 1.5 lakh sq mts in Mandrem.
Mhambre demanded that the government need to take residents of the villages into consideration before announcing the project.
He said, “The land is not the private property of MLAs and found it surprising that time and again the government was not taking Goans into confidence before setting up mega projects.”
