PANJIM: Endorsing Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar’s view that public statements by elected representatives can dampen the morale of the State police, Agriculture Minister Vijai Sardesai said that “legislators cannot ridicule the police force over their nexus with drug traders without authentic proof”.
Sardesai, leader of the Goa Forward Party (GFP), indirectly took on his MLA and Minister Vinod Palyekar stating, “If we are in government we have to speak with some responsibility.”
He was very categorical that there are certain lobbies outside the State keen to ridicule and malign Goa and that elected representatives cannot knowingly or unknowingly help them in the process.
Following repeated allegations levelled by MLAs from the ruling dispensation about the police-drug peddler nexus in the State, the chief minister in a letter had directed the MLAs to desist from making statements that are demoralising to the police force.
“Even if it is hinting at my Minister, I have no problem with it. We as legislators, and more as ministers, have certain responsibilities to factually and in concrete terms support our statement with proofs,” Sardesai said, when asked whether the CM’s warning was aimed at Palyekar, who has been very vocal recently against the police-drug nexus.
Sardesai said the issue of drugs is quite glamorous and sensational but that is not politics, especially not governance. “We also need to see that public disillusionment on the law enforcement authorities does not continue,” he said. “I think what CM says is right,” the Minister said.
Sardesai said the government is trying to adopt measures to break the drug trade in the State. “While doing that we cannot ridicule our police force now and then. Although I am not trying to back the police fully on the drug thing as there have been cases of nexus,” he stated.
