Team Herald
PANJIM: The Opposition Congress Party has written to Governor P S Sreedharan Pillai demanding a probe panel headed by a retired High Court judge to investigate recent communal tensions in the State and the immediate dismissal of the Pramod Sawant-led government.
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In the letter to the Governor, Goa Pradesh Congress Committee (GPCC) vice-president Sunil Kawthankar stated that communal tensions had caused harm to individuals and the social fabric of the state. The government’s inaction had exacerbated the issue. The government, headed by Chief Minister Pramod Sawant, had failed to maintain law and order and protect its citizens, and its continued presence would further destabilise the state.
“We request you to exercise your powers under the Indian Constitution and recommend the dismissal of the Sawant government for being hand-in-glove with the perpetrators of the overall situation of flared-up communal tension and therefore its deliberate inaction to handle the law and order situation in the state, thus demonstrating its inability to continue in office. It is an unprecedented situation in Goa where age-old communal harmony is being systematically undermined for narrow political gains,” he said.
Kawthankar urged the governor to constitute a probe panel headed by a retired High Court judge to investigate the communal tensions that flared up suddenly, particularly at a time when there was severe public backlash against the BJP government in the state for various issues ranging from rampant corruption to environmental destruction caused by massive illegal hill cutting, as well as the destruction of forested land to make way for mega real estate projects threatening Goa’s identity, culture, and heritage.
Kawthankar stated that it was this government that granted all the permissions for the Bhutani project and noted how Sawant, in 2021, formed a committee to review and reverse private forest protections, resulting in the removal of private forests from approximately 271 survey numbers. This opened up nearly 1.2 crore square metres of land for development, where controversial mega projects such as Bhutani had been established illegally against public opposition.
According to Kawthankar, the deliberate inaction of the Goa Police to take suo motu cognisance of former RSS Goa Prant chief Subhash Velingkar’s statements regarding St. Francis Xavier allegedly hurting religious sentiments, along with subsequent public statements from some BJP leaders, were clearly made to trigger and instigate communal sentiments, leading to the fallout. This raises serious doubts about whether these incidents were orchestrated to occur in a specific order, with the intention of creating religious discord in the peaceful state and diverting public attention from the actual issues plaguing Goa.
