Team Herald
MARGAO: Former minister Ramesh Tawadkar offered to resign from politics if anybody establishes his involvement in the poly house scam that has been troubling Canacona farmers for the last two years.
Further, claiming that he is being targeted for being of the ST community, the former minister threatened to expose the ill doings of those bad mouthing him.
Briefing media persons he said there has been a sustained campaign against him and rumours are spread that he is involved in the poly house scam that was introduced to encourage farmers to go for orchid cultivation.
“Farmers earn in lakhs of rupees by harvesting orchids and they are responsible to pay back their installments towards the loan taken for constructing the poly house,” he said while admitting that as agriculture minister he did promote the then existing scheme to construct poly houses in Canacona taluka.
Ramesh said that the contractor had duped the farmers as he failed to pay the deposit he had promised to pay while asking the farmers to make the initial payments and that is why the farmers were facing problem.
“Instead of tracing the contractor and taking action against him, I am being targeted and being maligned,” he said while asserting that he has always retained his principles and was a principled politician who did not let his family benefit from he being in office. A retired government servant Upaso Gaonkar who accompanied Ramesh said the former minister was being targeted only because despite being from the ST community he had established himself pretty well.
He threatened Ramesh Tawadkar’s detractors to stop maligning him immediately failing which he said all their sins of commission and omission will be exposed to the public.
