MARGAO: AICC secretary Girish Chodankar has strongly demanded a public apology from Prime Minister Narendra Modi for insulting and humiliating Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar during his visit to Goa by ignoring him completely.
The Congress has alleged that the the Prime Minister continued to ignore Chief Minister in a very arrogant manner. This has been watched live by people all over the world and has also become viral on social media.
“This arrogant gesture of the Prime Minister has exhibited feudal mentality of the PM to belittle Goa and has angered Goans. Ideologically and politically , Congress is against Parsekar as a politician and his party and his political beliefs. There is no love lost between Congress vis-a-vis BJP and Parsekar.
Congress is fighting against him in the state of Goa as well as in his constituency Mandrem. Congress is definite to defeat him in this elections for his failures, however, pride of Goa cannot be sacrificed at any level”, Chodankar added.
Reacting to a question on Congress’ stand on Mopa, Chodankar said, “We wont allow Dabolim airport to close down. We wont oppose Mopa because someone is opposing it.”
“Parsekar as a person may be accustomed to such humiliating treatment in BJP, but he should also understand that the insult meted out to the democratically elected Chief Minister of Goa is unpardonable. This has affected Goa’s pride very badly. We strongly condemn the rude and unwarranted behaviour of PM Modi and demand public apology from him to Goa”, said Chodankar.
Chodankar added that Manohar Parrikar may be PM’s favourite in Goa, but that does not give him the right to insult the CM of Goa and in turn, the Goans.
On a different note and while reacting to the advertisement released by Directorate of Women & Child Development for recruiting 14 probation officers with knowledge of Gujarati as desirable qualification, he said that this is under pressure of BJP national President Amit Shah to accommodate candidates from Gujarat as BJP government has failed to provide jobs to Gujaratis. “We cannot allow our jobs to be given to people from Gujarat. While doing this he said, BJP government has violated Official language Act by removing knowledge of Konkani as compulsory. In this advertisement government has made knowledge of Konkani desirable along with Marathi and Gujarati” Girish said.
Chodankar demanded that respect and place of Konkani should be restored as compulsory and not desirable. He warned the government not to play with sentiments of Goans.
