MARGAO: There was a major commotion at the Betalbatim Gram Sabha following which Arvind Da Costa, the Revolutionary Goans (RG) candidate from Nuvem Constituency, agreed to leave the gram sabha meeting to ensure that the meeting continues and is not adjourned.
Earlier, former Nuvem MLA Mickkey Pacheco and others questioned the Betalbatim Sarpanch Constancio Miranda to show the rules that allowed the Da Costa to be part of the meeting and demanded to see the written rules when the sarpanch and secretary were giving him verbal replies.
Thereafter, the Sarpanch called up the Salcete Block Development Officer (BDO) and conveyed to the gram sabha that the BDO had told him that people who are not from the village can be in the hall of the meeting but cannot participate in the meeting.
Even as Da Costa and Pacheco had a face to face argument over the entire episode, Da Costa said he would leave the meeting even though he had a right to be there as long as he had not spoken at the meeting. His two associates also left the meeting.
Beside this issue, the panchayat was grilled by the villagers over a range of issues. The biggest problem the villagers had was about how the panchayat had not held the gram sabha for a long period of time despite the locals having repeatedly urged the panchayat to hold regular gram sabha meetings.
Furthermore, it was alleged that the panchayat had granted permissions to various constructions and hotels in this time without the knowledge of the people and with no opportunity for the people to raise these issues at gram sabhas.
There was also a debate over a road that the locals had objected to and they said it was blocking the flow of water to neighbouring fields. It was decided to hold an inspection of the said road and take action against it accordingly as locals were upset over the alleged filling of fields.
Locals also had issues with the rising number of migrants residing in the village with some gram sabha members complaining about the amount of garbage that is being dumped in the open allegedly by them. Pacheco later hit out at the panchayat body for being unable to respond to the many queries the people had raised.
