Team Herald
MARGAO: Cuncolim MLA Clafacio Dias was on Sunday jeered, booed and forced to go away from the Chandor Cavorim gram sabha and was asked not only embarrassing questions but also berated for neglecting the village for two years since he was elected as its representative in the Goa Legislative Assembly.
As Clafacio was not invited for the gram sabha, he was asked to wait till the matter under discussion was over and then he rose to say that former deputy chief minister Vijai Sardessai had replaced the State Highway 8 passing through the village with a Major District Road (MDR) while he wanted to change it to a village road.
This created uproar with the villagers pointing out that the MLA had assiduously shied away from taking up this issue and the villagers on their own took up the matter with the authorities and got the SH 8 de-notified.
Some of the villagers who actively canvassed for him at the 2017 elections asked him why he did not take them into confidence when he defected to the BJP and one even called him a “monkey” who was hopping parties.
As the situation was getting a little acrimonious, Sarpanch Edward D’Silva took control and explained that engineers and officials had explained that the SH8 could be de-notified to be a MDR as it was connecting two talukas of Salcete and Quepem.
He said that the villagers had accepted this explanation as they were armed with an order from the Collector banning heavy traffic passing through the village.
The villagers asked Clafacio to implement that order first before making any other promises.
However, the villagers also welcomed his plans to notify that road as a village road and asked him to do it if it was possible.
Clafacio was forced to beat a hasty retreat within 10 minutes of the discussion with the villagers even though he waited for 20 minutes to be given an opportunity to speak to the people.
