MARGAO: The members of the Goa Bachao Abhiyan (GBA) on Monday condemned Margao Municipal Council (MMC)’s decision to GBA the permission to organise a public meeting on April 25 at Lohia Maidan, Margao, to protest against the amendments to the Town and Country Planning Act, 17(2) and 39(A).
The GBA members termed the decision as an “act to suppress the voices of the people”.
The Chief Officer of MMC, Gourish Sankhwalkar, cited urgent civil and electrical maintenance work undertaken by the civic body, as the reason for denying permission to GBA.
Congress party also condemned the BJP led MMC for denying permission to use the Lohia Maidan premises for its election campaign meetings.
Congress leader from Margao, Savio Coutinho charged that the Chief Officer of MMC was acting as a puppet of Margao MLA Digamber Kamat and doing all wrong things to please his master.
Citing details, Coutinho said that the Congress party had submitted their first application to book Lohia Maidan on March 19.
“Every time we went to the MMC office to follow up on our application status, we were told that the concerned file was in possession of the Chief Officer and we were assured that our application would be processed once the file came out of the CO’s chamber,” Coutinho said.
“As we smelled something fishy and feared that our application for May 4 booking would be denied at the last moment, we submitted another application on April 16, requesting the Council to book the premises for May 1 and 2. We were shocked today to be informed via a letter from the Chief Officer that our requests were rejected as the Council has decided to undertake urgent electrical maintenance works,” he added.
Showing the copy of permission issued for some other programme that was held on April 9 at the same venue, Coutinho said that application for this permission was submitted on March 22, and permission was granted on April 1.
“But the application, which was submitted on March 19, was not processed, and rejected instead. This is a strong proof of how this government is misusing powers to suppress the opposition voice, and deny a level field for election campaigns.
