PANJIM: Painting 2012 as a year of ‘Manohar Parrikar U-turns’, Congress Monday chose to give driving lessons to the chief minister who is presently in the driver’s seat, hoping that 2013 would bring in a change and he “would now drive straight.”
Transport operator and Congress party spokesperson Sudip Tamhankar cited a total of 32 ‘U-turns’ on issues ranging from mining, grants for medium of instruction and promises on upscaling infrastructure, since coming to power in 2012.
Top on the Congress’ list is Parrikar’s promise of Zero Tolerance to Corruption, which Tamhankar said continued to be all pervading in the state.
Tamhankar brought to light Parrikar’s (in)famous statements that there is No Illegal mining in Goa, his continuing with the Congress policy on giving grants to English medium schools, failing to bring out a new regional plan and other issues like constructing the Calvim bridge on priority, etc.
“After crying hoarse, as opposition leader, that all mining in Goa was illegal, Parrikar said that there was no illegal mining in Goa after he became chief minister. This was the biggest U-turn,” Tamhankar said.
“On the issue of medium of instruction, despite leading protests against the Congress government’s decision to give grants to English Medium Schools, he himself continued with the same policy,” Tamhankar asserted.
Tamhankar, who is also the General Secretary of the All Goa Private Bus Owners’ Association also sought to pull up Parrikar for going ahead with HSRP implementation, despite opposing the same when he was opposition leader.
The Congress also spoke of the issue of off-shore casinos -Parrikar while in the opposition had given ultimatums to the then Congress government to remove the casinos from the Mandovi, but now while in power has allowed the casinos to stay put.
Speaking of unfulfilled promises, Tamhankar brought to light the issue of the Mayem evacuee property, which according to Tamhankar Parrikar was supposed to resolve by December 19, which hasn’t been resolved yet; the building of the Calvim bridge, which was supposed to be completed in eight months, but as of now only a foundation stone is in place, his failure to rein in Goa’s garbage lying along the streets despite promising to do so in three months, he said.
