MARGAO
The Aam Aadmi Party has said that the circumstances that forced Adv Shubalaxmi Naik to resign as Chairperson of Goa Women’s Commission within a short tenure of one year shows that this government has no concern for
women issues.
Addressing the media, AAP women’s front chairperson Maclean Coutinho said that when the party had raised a demand on women’s day to get the commission to conduct weekly sittings in
South Goa, came the news of the chairperson herself resigning.
She said it was shameful that the department of women and child welfare had succumbed to political pressure of ministers to cripple the functioning of the commission and demanded that the chairperson’s resignation should be rejected and all assistance should be provided to her.
Coutinho drew a parallel with the Chairperson of Delhi Commission for Women, Swati Maliwal, whose functioning is getting all-round applause. “We can arrange tuitions for this government on how these things need to run,” she said.
AAP leader Sidharth Karapurkar added that the victimisation was not only of women, but crooks in the government were successfully making money on children by supplying substandard snacks to them and claiming bills to the tune of Rs 24 lakh on items fit for consumption only by maggots.
“The government that doesn’t treat the women and children with respect is a curse and has no right to continue,” he said.
Meanwhile AAP Convenor Elvis Gomes said that the ECI machinery itself was groping in the dark about the model code of conduct.
Gomes was reacting to a query on the removal of banners and hoardings after the model code of conduct came into force. “Can one imagine that announcement by EC starts at 5 pm on Sunday, and a team of Margao Municipal Council officials start removing the AAP hoarding at the under construction hospital Margao at 5:15 pm?
Someone has panicked due to rising support for AAP,” Elvis said.
He added that the ECI should clearly spell out the policy on use of publicity material instead of arbitrarily destroying the hoardings without giving even 24 hours notice to remove these.
