Team Herald
margao: Curtorim MLA Aleixo Reginaldo Lourenco accused Chief Minister Pramod Sawant of making a false statement that former CM (late) Manohar Parrikar had never rejected the Southern Western Railway (SWR) double-tracking.
Stating that Sawant had lied to mislead Goenkars, Reginaldo said it is on record that on July 17, 2013, Parrikar had completely opposed the double-tracking of the SWR line.
“The country’s premier news agency, PTI had on that day interviewed Parrikar on his stand and Parrikar was blunt in talking about how when he had refused the permission to double the track of SWR in Goa and that Parrikar had said ‘we don’t want it’,” Reginaldo explained.
“Parrikar had further stated that ‘the double track can be laid up to the Goa border but within the State limits we won’t allow’. Parrikar was very clear that the double-tracking is done for transporting coal, hence no such double tracking would be permitted within the Goa State.”
Reginaldo further quoted what Parrikar had said in his own words: “We are not giving any permission for double-tracking. The proposal of increasing the tracks was mooted at the behest of few industrialists which want to transport coal from Mormugao Port Trust.”
The Opposition MLA also slammed the BJP government at the Centre for pursuing ‘selfish catastrophic infrastructure projects in Goa’, which he said is driven by capitalists
