Locals angry after St Estevam VP postpones meet over code

A large number of concerned locals who had gathered outside the panchayat to attend the gram sabha, on Sunday, expressed their anguish over the postponement of the special gram sabha with the panchayat citing code of conduct as the reason.

“The code of conduct applies only to developmental works and this meeting had no relation to development. Also, the meeting was announced before the code came into effect,” a local Mariano Ferrao informed The Goan while expressing surprise over the postponement.

“As the panchayat has cited code of conduct as the reason for the postponement, the meeting is unlikely to be held till March 3 when the code will be lifted. Till that time, the work on the bridge will be completed,” Ferrao opined and informed that they came to know of the postponement only on Sunday morning, when it was announced in the Church.

Panch Perpetua D’Cunha informed that she came to know of the postponement of the meeting as a notice of the same was posted on the social media group of the panchayat, on Saturday evening.

However, D’Cunha said that the sarpanch should have remained present in the panchayat and should have explained to them the situation.

On the postponement, D’Cunha said, “This issue pertained to the village and the panchayat should have gone ahead with it to show their support to the villagers.”

A local Viona Afonso said that the sarpanch had earlier assured them that the gram sabha would be held on January 2. “However, later it was decided to hold it on January 9. I don’t know why they have decided to postpone it now,” Afonso stated and alleged that the panchayat is dilly-dallying on the issue.

“We are concerned about the environment and want to protect it. In fact, we had worked together to elect new faces to save our environment but the same people are all out to destroy our village,” Afonso alleged.