PANAJI
State Congress president Girish Chodankar on Friday likened Chief Minister Pramod Sawant and Deputy Chief Minister Chandrakant Kavlekar to the 'short term memory loss' inflicted Ghajini in the 2008 Aamir Khan starring film, as the top Congress official tore into the BJP-led coalition government over its reluctance to act against the controversial illegal structure in the Old Goa heritage zone.
Addressing a press conference in Panaji, Chodankar also said that by conceding that illegal permissions had been granted to the controversial structure by then Town and Country Planning Minister Vijai Sardesai, Kavlekar had in fact admitted that the illegal structure had been backed by the BJP-led coalition government, which Sardesai's party, Goa Forward had been a part of from 2017-2019.
"I do not understand what Babu Kavlekar is saying. I do not understand what is happening to the brains of the BJP. Do they have a short term memory problem? The BJP government has been in power since 2014. They seem to forget that momentarily. Babu Kavlekar and Pramod Sawant have become like Ghajini. Do they not remember that from 2012, they are in government and Congress has not been in power even for a day?" Chodankar said.
"Babu Kavlekar is admitting that BJP government has done illegalities. Goa Forward was a part of the BJP government. Whether it is Goa Forward or it is someone else, ultimately it is a BJP government. All permissions are not just given by the TCP. There are other departments which are also involved in that. Ultimately, it zeroes down to BJP," Chodankar also said, adding that for the first time a government minister had conceded that it was their dispensation that had granted permission to the illegal construction, which has emerged as one of the key emotive issues ahead of the 2022 assembly polls.
