PANAJI
Goa Forward Party (GFP) continued its scathing attack on the BJP government alleging it has betrayed Goa on Mhadei for over 20 years.
Addressing a press meeting on Monday, GFP President Vijai Sardesai alleged that all the national parties were in fact responsible for deliberately failing to resolve the issue in Goa’s favour.
“Successive governments have backstabbed us on Mhadei. It has been happening right from 2002…Where do we go for justice? This is a political issue and needs a political solution,” he demanded.
Sardesai also opposed the idea of taking an all-party delegation to the Centre to demand revoking the approval to the DPR on the Kalasa-Bhandura project while recalling that former Union Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change Prakash Javdekar had tricked the delegation in 2019.
“I find no reason to take an all-party delegation to Delhi. In 2019, the same delegation met Prakash Javdekar on December 18 to express concern about the issue. He assured the project is kept in abeyance but six days later on December 24, the same minister conveyed through a letter that the Government of India had not kept in abeyance the EoI notification-2006 and neither the rule which clarifies that drinking water requires environment clearance,” Sardesai said. “What is the guarantee that history will not be repeated,” the GFP leader questioned.
As the GFP leaders held a meeting with Mhadei expert Nirmala Sawant to understand the matter, Sardesai further apprehended that “spineless leadership” will bail Goa out of the problem.
“It is an issue of 22 MPs from Karnataka and 2 MPs from Goa, and one CM (Pramod Sawant) who, to save his chair, can sell his mother Mhadei,” he lamented, hinting that upcoming elections in Karnataka could put Goa on the back foot.
