Team Herald
PANJIM: The Goa Movement for Special Status has now decided to keep their numerous petitions and memorandums on giving Goa Special Status aside and take to the streets on the 4th anniversary of Matanhy Saldanha’s death on March 21.
The issue of pursuing and conferring Special Status has once again arisen after the second consecutive snub by the Centre when the Union Minister of State for Home Haribhai Chaudhary, in a written reply, in the Rajya Sabha to MP Shantaram Naik, said that the matter of granting of special provisions to the State of Goa was “examined and was not considered feasible”. The provision of Special Status has been sought, mainly to regulate ownership and transfer of land, which has been Goa’s biggest bane.
Speaking to the Herald, the President of the Goa Movement for Special Status (GMSS) Prajal Sakhardande said, “We are going to intensify the struggle on the 4th death anniversary of Matanhy Saldanha. His dream of Goa getting Special Status has been shattered and we have been betrayed by this BJP government. Matanhy Saldanha had joined the BJP only on the condition that Special Status for Goa would be a reality. And Manohar Parrikar (former CM) had said at Matanhy’s funeral that he would fulfill all his dreams. But he did not do so.”
The GMSS will march from Mapusa to Panjim supported by its rapidly growing students’ wing, shouting slogans against the BJP government and carrying placards. Sakhardande said that this would be the beginning of a new phase of struggle where people would be more on the streets than in offices writing petitions.
The role of the RDA minister and the wife of the Late Matanhy, will be watched very closely, specially by members of the GMSS. Alina Saldanha has been under the scanner by the pro-Special Status Movement for not standing by her word of resigning from the cabinet if the BJP government does not fulfill the promise of giving Goa Special Status. At the recent press conference addressed by the GMSS, she sat in the audience and said that she was there as the wife of the Late Matanhy and not as minister and she still hopes that the BJP government would fulfill its promise.
The GMSS has no such hope. “The Chief Minister of Goa (Parsekar) has said that it’s a mirage and the former CM told us as recently as two months ago that ‘someone from Goa will have to push it with the Centre’.”
It is very unlikely that Alina Saldanha will join the march on her husband’s death anniversary, for a cause which dominated his life.
It is evident that the issue, which the BJP thought they could keep at bay, will be yet another albatross around its neck, since it strikes a very emotional chord across sections and regions of Goa.
