PANAJI
Residents of Bhoma village, which has been in the grip of a sustained agitation over a highway expansion project, have escalated the issue now threatening the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) that they will en-block oppose them in next year's Lok Sabha polls if their demand for a bypass road is not fulfilled by the government.
The group agitating against the project, which also includes the committee of a temple they fear will be affected by the work, believe that tying up their support for the Lok Sabha elections is their best bet to get the government to agree to a bypass road.
Some houses and a part of the temple will be affected by the highway expansion project, the agitating villagers have alleged. The government on the other hand claims that neither any house nor the temple will be affected.
The Bhoma village folk are demanding that the government ensure that the highway bypasses their village fearing that it will pose a threat to the temple and some houses.
The PWD meanwhile is going ahead with the highway expansion plan despite the stiff opposition from the village. PWD Minister Nilesh Cabral is on record both in meetings with the villagers as well as in the Goa legislative assembly that the work does not harm the temple or any of the houses.
Art and Culture Minister Govind Gaude, in whose Priol constituency the Bhoma village is located, also held deliberations with the agitating villagers and the Devasthan Committee last week where he too repeated Cabral's claim that the highway work does not pose any danger to either the temple or any house.
Gaude's refrain that the villagers should desist from politicising the issue by involving politicians in their stir also irked them.
Gaude was apparently referring to a large public meeting in the village where Revolutionary Goans Party (RGP) MLA Viresh Borkar and Goa Forward Party (GFP) MLA, Vijai Sardesai, participated.
