Team Herald
PANJIM: Two days after BJP MLA Nilesh Cabral attacked the fact-finding report prepared by the Council for Social Justice and Peace (CSJP) on the desecration of shrines, the opposition Congress questioned the government’s intention in getting a Catholic MLA to attack a church body.
The Congress also reiterated its demand for a CBI inquiry into the desecration episode in view of doubts raised by the church.
Addressing the media, Congress MLA and spokesperson of the legislative wing, Aleixo Reginaldo Lourenco, referred to a BJP Catholic MLA attacking the church and asked, “Is this not polarisation?” He urged the ruling dispensation not to use Catholic leaders against the Church as it sends a wrong signal on the part of secularism.
Lourenco pointed out that the Church was also very vociferous during the March 2012 elections, and the result of it was that Congress went out of power.
Cabral had challenged the fact-finding report on the desecrations of shrines and had alleged that the report was made public before the by-polls so as to polarise voters. The MLA had also taken offence to remarks made in a magazine article against the Union and Goa governments.
The fact-finding team comprising the Mumbai-based Centre for Study of Society and Secularism (CSSS) and the CSJP had concluded that there was the involvement of more than one person and had demanded a court-monitored probe. It also accused the State police as well as the administration of trying to cover-up the investigation.
Goa Pradesh Congress Committee (GPCC) President Shantaram Naik said that Cabral’s attack on the Church was an indirect attack on the Archbishop.
He took strong objection to the BJP MLA attacking the article that appeared in the Church bulletin, that compared BJP government with Nazis rule in Germany. “BJP is rightfully charged by the article. BJP should feel ashamed that its activities compel the people to think in that manner. If not fully, in some proportion, the BJP rule is not less than Nazi rule,” the former MP charged.
Naik said he will write to the Union Home Minister demanding that the desecration case be handed over to CBI.
