PANJIM: Congress has said that Union Minister for Environment Forest and Climate Change Prakash Javdekar is ‘guilty of betrayal’ since he refused to take media questions on Mhadei diversion by Karnataka.
“The guilt of betraying Goa was visible on the face of Prakash Javdekar who was repeatedly wiping his nose and mouth out of nervousness during the press conference,” Goa Pradesh Congress Committee (GPCC) President Girish Chodankar said in a statement issued hours after Javdekar’s press briefing at Secretariat on Sunday morning.
Chodankar also alleged that it was deliberate and intentional darkness of Javdekar on Goa’s lifeline Mhadei besides on various environmental issues like “destruction to Mollem Wildlife Sanctuary, opposition to converting Goa into a Coal Hub to benefit PM Narendra Modi’s Crony Club, opposition by locals to IIT on cultivable land at Shel-Melaulim, issues faced by Mapusa Farmers has once again brought to light the “Defects of Chief Minister Pramod Sawant.”
Girish has thus demanded that Sawant release a White Paper with facts and figures on all the core issues including Mhadei and other environmental problems. The CM should make public what transpired during his meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi four days back, Chodankar demanded amidst silence from the government in addressing the crucial issues.
The Congress leader said they suspect that CM was called to Delhi to forge some conspiracy to benefit either the neighbouring Karnataka or ‘Crony Capitalist friends’ of the PM.
Reacting to Javdekar’s statement ‘Dalal of Dalals’ Chodankar claimed that the BJP has accepted that senior BJP leader Prakash Velip is also a “Dalal” as the former minister had opposed the Bill citing loss of Rs 9 crores to Goa.
“Former Governor of Goa Satya Pal Malik had openly called Pramod Sawant a “liar”, while the Lokayukta of Goa has given multiple “Certificates for Corruption” to various scams of the Government. We reiterate our stand that the BJP has mortgaged our Mother Mhadei to Karnataka for gaining political advantage to BJP. All the BJP Ministers, MLAs and Office-bearers are having vested interests in Coal transportation and are getting huge kickbacks from Modi’s crony capitalists friends and hence are silent on these core environmental issues,” stated Chodankar.
