Team Herald
VASCO: Mormugao taluka which returned four BJP MLAs in 2017 boosting its tally to 13 in the Goa Legislative Assembly may be looking elsewhere this election.
The taluka has four constituencies – Mormugao, Vasco, Dabolim and Cortalim. At the core of the taluka is the Mormugao Port Trust that is now the Mormugao Port Authority (MPA) and herein lies the issue.
Activists have termed this development as a move that will convert the port area into a ‘State within a State’. The port, which had already drawn much criticism for the coal handling activities returned to prominence in the last week over this issue.
However, as people are gradually coming to terms with what the Authority will do, rather than the act itself, are realising how this will impact their lives personally. The undercurrent of this making an electoral impact is already forming. In fact, one of the Congress candidates from Mormugao felt that environmental concerns and the talking over of this belt by the all imposing Mormugao Ports Authority is causing a groundswell against the BJP, in a manner that normal anti-incumbency could not.
The Major Ports Bill and Act had been opposed by activists. One of the leading lights of the group is Capt Viriato Fernandes, who is now a Congress candidate from Dabolim fighting on a poll plank of ridding Goa of the three linear projects. Capt Fernandes and the environmentalists have been opposing the Bill since it was passed by the Union government and are demanding to repeal it.
Speaking to Herald, Fr Bolmax Pereira, activist priest of Chicalim said, “Capt Viriato along with civil society played the role of a principal opposition when the government was in destructive mode. He took up various issues affecting environment including the Major Ports Bill. Capt Viriato was the first activist who raised the alarm against the MPA and the people of the taluka know it. Today people look at him to save our environment and ecology.”
Some of the candidates made it a poll issue and have assured the people that they would oppose the Act as it would cause disaster and compel the government to repeal it if elected.
Some wished this push to make the MPT turn into an MPA poll issue should have happened earlier. “Unfortunately, Goans wake up only after the horses have bolted. The three linear projects are one such example. Nonetheless, I do hope that the new Legislature will protect Goa’s interests by prevailing upon the Centre to exempt Mormugao Port from the relevant provisions of the MPA Act,” Adv Correia said.
Chicalim villager and human rights activist Cyril A Fernandes said, “The Mormugao Port Authority Act is the last nail in the Sagarmala coffin whose template was drawn by the Congress government at the Centre.”