MARGAO: Former chief minister Luizinho Faleiro, sitting Congress MLA Wilfred D’Sa and BJP MLA Nilesh Cabral on Saturday denied allegations made at the Goencho Avaaz meeting on Friday that they had got their lands converted into settlements. They have asserted that their lands were demarcated as settlement zones in the Regional Plan 2001 itself.
“In fact, part of the area that was shown as settlement in Regional Plan 2001 was shown as green area in the Regional Plan 2021 so where is the question of me manipulating anything,” Luizinho said.
Incidentally, Luizinho owns only half the property on Zug Island which is in a river and not in the sea.
“The remaining properties on the island are owned by five families belonging to the Mascarenhas or Silvas,” Luizinho said and claimed that the five families are now unhappy because the settlement zone belonging to them has been changed into green areas.
He said maintaining property on the island has become very expensive, as even canoes cannot go there with the material and vandals who go there at night have ravaged the place.
“Around five houses have been broken and the one house that was repaired has its door and tiles stolen,” he said.
“I support the movement against the Regional Plan 2021 and it should be thrown out lock, stock and barrel,” Luizinho said adding that he was always opposed to Regional Plan, PDAs and ODPs.
He disclosed that he had quietly got Navelim constituency delinked from the SGPDA and also kept it out of the Margao ODP.
Maintaining that the speakers at the Lohia Maidan meeting were either misguided or misunderstood the scenario, Luizinho advised that, “While using a public platform one has to be responsible and cross check facts before uttering anything.”
“The outcome of such statements is that the movement gets a bad name and people will lose the sympathy they have for the cause,” he said reiterating that portion of his land on Zug island has been changed from settlement to green cover as per Regional Plan 2021.
Meanwhile, Wilfred alias Babashan D’Sa said that the allegation made against him was false. “That is my ancestral property and we have been paying house tax for so many years for the ancestral house that was in it,” he said.
He also stated that the property was marked as settlement zone even in Regional Plan 2001 and hence remained as settlement in Regional Plan 2021 without him having to do anything.
Meanwhile, Nilesh Cabral, who was named in the list of 14 MLAs/ministers on Friday by Goencho Awaz, of allegedly converting his land into settlement, has threatened to file a defamation suit against the members of Goencho Awaz if they do not give a written apology for allegedly making false allegations against him.
Cabral said that even before entering into politics he had been a successful businessman and that buying land was not new to him.
“Do I not do anything else to earn a living and become a corrupt politician in the bargain? If that is what they want, then, I can’t do that. I am honest and remain so,” he said.
