PANJIM: Senior Statesman and former
MLA Uday Bhembre has castigated the fact that crores of rupees of people’s
money is being spent over the last nearly two years to fight the case of the eight
Congress defectors who joined the BJP. They betrayed the trust of the people
and made a mockery of the Constitution, he said.
“Eight MLAs
who had won on the nomination (ticket) of one party defected to another party.
There is a disqualification petition filed on this issue. It is pending before
the Goa Assembly Speaker for nearly two years. There is no need for nearly two
years to decide this case. It can be done within a few months. But this is not
happening,” Bhembre pointed out.
Bhembre
flagged that the government is spending crores of rupees on those who have
defected. “In the last nearly two years so many crores have been spent on them.
Whose money is this? This is the money of the people,” Bhembre asserted. “People’s
money is being spent on those who have made a fool of the people, those who
have betrayed and those who have made a mockery of the Constitution,” he argued.
Referring
to the question whether there is a need for a second revolution in Goa, Bhembre
said, “When those in authority don’t listen even after people raising this
issue, then agitation is the only way out. And this is what Ram Manohar Lohia
had told us on 18 June 1946.”
“If we take
a lesson from that Revolution Day, when there is injustice, if things don’t happen
as they should, then the problem does not get solved by keeping quiet. Then
people have to rise up, come out on the streets and after showing people’s
power they have to right the wrongs. Lohia’s 18th June Revolution
took place because of such a reason –because there were no civil liberties.
Lohia and 2500 leaders and people came out on Lohia Maidan Margao to fight for
these liberties,” Bhembre declared.
