Team Herald
PANJIM: While it alleged that projects approved under the Investment Promotion Board (IPB) are nothing but an ‘election gimmick’ to strengthen the migrant vote bank, Congress on Wednesday sounded indecisive on opposing the Bill on Regularisation of Illegal/Unauthorized Structures likely to come up in the monsoon session of the Assembly.
Addressing the media, Congress spokespersons Adv Yatish Naik and Trajano D’Mello were unclear on whether the party opposes the government’s decision to regularize unauthorized structures in the State, existing prior to February 2014. “The Congress Legislative Party will take a decision on it. Let the Bill be introduced and then let us study it. It won’t be appropriate to comment at this stage,” both said.
D’Mello, the party’s newly-appointed general secretary, however, said the party will support rehabilitation of illegal shanties rather than allowing regularization. “Those people are human too and we need to look at the issue on humanitarian grounds. They should be rehabilitated,” he said.
Earlier, D’Mello demanded that the government scrap the IPB, which was formed for the ‘loot and destruction’ of the State in the name of investment and development. “The kind of hotel and real estate projects approved will attract migrants and will strengthen BJP’s vote bank,” he charged. “IPB has failed to attract lucrative and reasonable employment to Goans. IPB has led to destruction of the State,” he stated.
On the other hand, Naik said that the BJP-led government is the ‘worst’ government liberated Goa has seen. “The complete failure of governance, U-turns and kind of arrogance, that Goa had never seen in the past. The BJP government has completely demolished the concept of good governance,” he said.
