VITHALDAs HEGDE
vhegde3@herald-goa.com
PANJIM: The simmering tension between the two tribal leaders, Minister Govind Gaude and Speaker Ramesh Tawadkar, has come out in the open, with the latter threatening to quit from the post.
The gloves are well and truly off in the ongoing tussle between the two leaders for the last few months. It was Tawadkar who first blew the scam bugle against Gaude in the disbursal of funds to cultural tropes in February this year. The Speaker had charged that some cultural organisations from Canacona taluka were fraudulently given funds of Rs 26.85 lakh through the Directorate of Art and Culture, to hold programmes that never took place.
This had annoyed Gaude, who had then complained that the Speaker chose to target him when the Assembly session was on. “If anybody has a grudge against me then he should raise the issue at the right platform,” Gaude had said, indirectly hitting out at the Speaker.
Capitalising on this, the Opposition parties had demanded the resignation of Art and Culture Minister for a free and fair probe into the allegations.
It is reliably learnt that Tawadkar was also peeved for not getting government funds to organise various programmes to commemorate the 150th birth anniversary of the architect of tribal resilience Bhagwan Birsa Munda from November 15 to 20.
Thus, remarks by the Art and Culture Minister during the UTAA convention in Farmagudi on Sunday and the non-availability of adequate funds made the Speaker warn that he would quit from his post.
Reacting to the differences between the two tribal leaders, the Mission Political Reservation for Scheduled Tribes president Adv John Fernandes said, “Everybody wants to capitalise on tribal issues. They want to project themselves as the more popular and powerful in the ST communities and are not concerned about settling the issues in the true sense. They want to keep tribal issues hanging. After 2011 Balli agitation, the BJP came to power and it should have pursued our issues. But they did nothing.”
Another ST leader and activist Rama Kankonkar said, “It is internal politics between the Art and Culture Minister and the Speaker. Both are in the same political party. I am more interested in getting justice to ST communities by settling their pending demands.”
Meanwhile, the BJP State president Sadanand Shet Tanavade is expected to broker truce between the two tribal leaders. On Wednesday, he spoke to Tawadkar and assured him that he along with Chief Minister Pramod Sawant would meet him next week to discuss his grievances.