TEAM HERALD
PANJIM: Politician turned RTI activist Rajan Ghate, who is sitting on 5th indefinite hunger strike, demanding the appointment of impartial information commissioners told media Saturday that he would not give up the fast till his demands are met.
The RTI Forum said that they would intensify the mobilization at Azad Maidan from next week and get more leaders to sit in. Present at the venue Saturday was Congress CLP spokesman Alexio Reginaldo Lourenco.
Ghate’s RTI colleagues also reportedly wanted the meeting of three-member high-level committee to be brought forward.
Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar had announced that the committee would meet on July 29 to finalize the names of Central Information Commissioner (CIC) and State Information Commissioner (SIC).
The high level committee consists of Parrikar, Leader of the Opposition Pratapsing Rane and Deputy Chief Minister Francisco D’Souza.
Dr Claude Alvares, Babuso Gaonkar, Avinash Bhosle, Nandini Sahay, Dr Oscar Rebello and Jose Philip D’Souza visite Ghate at the site.
India Against Corruption (Goa Chapter), urged Rajan Ghate to break his fast at the earliest, “so that he may remain in good health and continue to fight for issues concerning the common man and woman of Goa,” expressed their solidarity and support to Ghate while “strongly” protesting the artificial delays by the Government of Goa in appointing CIC and SIC. “Despite a categorical personal assurance to Ghate and the RTI Forum earlier, Parrikar appears to have failed in fulfilling yet another promise to the people of Goa,” says the communiqué. It also argued that the CM’s actions on an Uttarakhand-type Lokayukta for Goa and on the appointment of the RTI Commissioners were in complete contradiction to his grand promises and stated “zero tolerance to corruption” after his party won the 2012 elections on the anti-corruption wave. IAC Goa also urged the CM to consider a woman as one of the appointees.
It also demanded that the CM and the Goa unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) urge its national leadership to withdraw support to and categorically protest any attempt by the Central Government to repeal the recent Central CIC order bringing political parties under the ambit of the RTI Act.
“While the Lokpal Bill and Citizens Charters are languishing due to red tape, even after two years of written assurances by the UPA Govt, all the political parties have wasted no time in joining hands and pushing through a new bill to strike down the CIC order and dilute the attempt at transparency,” it said.
