MARGAO: In a show of strength, State Congress leaders projected a united front as they kick-started their campaign for the 2017 elections with the underlying message of bringing a change in the next elections.
The change, they stressed, would be from the bad governance and culture of intolerance and vendetta. This was the crux of the speeches made to a packed audience that was spilling onto the roads around Lohia Maidan.
“We all believe in the country’s heritage and I love my country and Goa, so I will fight against intolerance which acts like a hurdle in our progress. I will strive hard to maintain democratic values. There cannot be progress without peace we take an oath to maintain freedom, democracy and secularism,” said GPCC chief Luizinho Faleiro while reading the oath of tolerance before beginning the meeting.
With banners all around and a large visual display of the conditions of Hospicio hospital and the under construction district hospital, Margao MLA and
former chief minister Digambar Kamat tore into the BJP government for failing on all development fronts, especially in Margao.
Kamat was at his entertaining best and compared the development carried out during his tenure to that of the BJP government and listed out four projects – the district collectorate, the district hospital, the KTC bus stand and non conventional energy park. Kamat used these examples to criticise the BJP government for failing to make any headway and losing crores of rupees and pointed out that the district collectorate was completed during his tenure. He compared the prices of oil barrels worldwide and the cost of diesel and petrol in Goa during his tenure and remarked that despite the cost of oil coming down drastically, the BJP had not transferred the benefit to the consumer.
Kamat then returned to the overall theme of intolerance and questioned how the government can decide on what people should eat and discriminate on religious grounds. He described the Dadri lynching and other recent communal incidents and gave a clarion call for Goans to unite and start the freedom struggle against such intolerance just as Ram Manohar Lohia had issued a clarion call on the same grounds.
He alleged that the BJP’s only success was vendetta and spoke about how the BJP can pride itself in demolishing the Baina hutments and leaving those residents on the streets and in trying to implicate Kamat in false cases and targeting his family in raids to tarnish his image.
Kamat claimed that BJP was targeting him as they wanted to defeat him in the municipal elections but the people of Margao gave their answer to the BJP. The crowd responded loudly to this.
Kamat along with Rajya Sabha MP Shantaram Naik, former chief minister Pratapsingh Rane, Faleiro, former MP Francisco Sardinhba and former chief minister Ravi Naik released the toll free helpline number for Margao in case of emergencies.
Faleiro listed out several reasons where the BJP government had displayed intolerance and criticised Prime Minister Narendra Modi for talking about tolerance in London but failing to take action in India and dared him to evict Union Minister Mahesh Sharma and Haryana Chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar for their communal statements.
Faleiro criticised the BJP for its comments and decisions on beef and pointed out that not only had the price of beef in the market jumped up, the BJP had failed to bring down the price of items like dal and asked what the common man should eat.
Faleiro called the BJP’s manifesto a ‘Many Falso’ and said it was a betrayal. He spoke about how the economy had suffered and BJP had failed to stick to its promises on casinos, mining, Medium of Instruction and other issues.
Margao market leader and former minister Babu Azgaonkar said there was no difference between the central and state governments. He recalled how during his tenure as Sports minister he wanted to build a sports city at Tiracol and at that time Laxmikant Parsekar as MLA had objected saying 3,000 trees would be cut, but it took him just half an hour to destroy those trees when he sold Tiracol for a gold course project.
Azgaonkar further trained his guns on Modi and said it was unbecoming for a prime minister to have such an approach when it came to reacting to criticism and continued to mock the PM much to the crowd’s delight.
As it was getting late, Congress leaders decided to cut short the meeting and Rane, who spoke last, referred to anti-Goan and anti-common man policies of the government. He gave the example of the Goa Tenancy Act amendment.
What stood out from the meeting was the presence of Congress leaders and workers from North and South Goa and the various factions from Salcete constituencies like Nuvem, Cuncolim and Curtorim.
