Team Herald
PONDA: Union Shipping and Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari appealed to the people to vote for the BJP since only the saffron party can provide a stable government in Goa.
Addressing a campaign meeting at Shiroda on Thursday, Gadkari appealed to Goans to make Goa Congress free.
He said that since 2007, due to political instability, Goa was lagging behind in development, but the 2012 election has proved that only BJP has the ability to provide stable government. Therefore, he said, he was confident that the people would give the BJP 26 seats for the sake of stability.
Accusing the Congress government at the Centre of failing to provide funds for development of Goa, he said that within two and half years of coming to power, the BJP government sanctioned Rs 15,000 crore for highway widening with concrete roads as well as for other developments, which the State never received since its liberation. He said that Panjim-Mangalore highway would be widened at a cost of around Rs 3000 crore.
He promised that the new Zuari Bridge at Cortalim will be inaugurated before 2018.
Touting the job potential of the proposed Mopa airport, the minister said that as of now 89 tourist charter planes are flying into Goa per year, but once the Mopa airport is completed 250 charter flights will arrive in Goa tripling the employment in the tourism sector.
Informing that 55 buses are running on bio-ethanol prepared by farmers in Maharashtra, he said the government would promote 1500 such industries all over India.
On developing inland waterways, he said, “We are trying to connect 111 rivers and will develop 20,000 kilometer water route with thousands of water ports.”
Blaming the successive Congress governments at the Centre for poverty in the country, he said, “Wrong economic policies, lack of administration and corruption has made the people of the country poor.”
He declared that the Central government would provide houses to each and every citizen in the country by 2022.
Shiroda BJP candidate Mahadev Naik blamed MGP leader Sudin Dhavalikar for lack of development in Shiroda saying Sudin was withholding development files relating to Shiroda constituency.
