PANAJI
The Aam Aadmi Party on Sunday categorically promised that the party will do away with casinos when they come to power, also promising to rehabilitate employees who stand to lose their jobs in the event the industry is shut down.
“The response to our Goa Dialogues programme has been overwhelmingly against casinos. Support to casinos must be stopped. We will be coming out with our manifesto. Our survey too has found that there isn’t popular support for casinos,” AAP’s spokesperson Ashutosh who is down in the state said.
Earlier, Ashutosh released an appeal video by Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal who said that it was “only AAP which could get the casinos out of Goa.”
“Parrikar promised that he would shut the casinos? Did he do it? Only AAP can shut the casinos,” Kejriwal says in the video which will be screened across AAP meetings in the State.
When asked about the fate of the employees engaged in these casinos, Ashutosh said that “not a single employee will be made to suffer.”
“They will be rehabilitated before any action is taken against the casinos,” Ashutosh said.
The party has also hit out at Union Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar for his ‘blatant lies’ on several issues.
“The people of Goa know what kind of a person Manohar Parrikar is. He has said yesterday that he has fulfilled every promise. But on the street, people are saying that he has taken a U-turn on every promise of note,” Ashutosh said.
“He had promised action on the mining scam, arguably Goa’s biggest scandal but not a single action has been initiated. He had promised to bring guilty Congressmen to book, no prosecution has begun against any Congressman. He had promised action on casinos, everyone knows what happened of that,” Ashutosh added.
He also sought to highlight Parrikar’s ‘lie’ that 95% of One Rank One Pension has been implemented.
“If that was the case, then why did Ram Kishan Grewal commit suicide? Why are so many ex-army men still protesting in Delhi?” Ashutosh asked.
“The AAP will focus on issues like that of education, health and not on dividing the people like the other parties have,” Kejriwal is seen saying in the video.
