OLD GOA
A video involving a Merces panch which went viral in the village seems to have ruffled the feathers of the Merces panchayat, with Deputy Sarpanch Armstrong Braganza claiming that the panchayat is not involved in corruption.
Braganza made the claim while addressing a news conference in the panchayat on Thursday, in the presence of Sarpanch Geeta Kavlekar and other panchas.
Incidentally, the video shows a woman assaulting a Merces panch, an incident which occurred more than a month back. However, the video was made viral only recently with a title that the panch is being beaten up for corruption.
Stating that the allegations of corruption against one panch reflects on the entire panchayat, Braganza said they only want to clarify that Merces panchayat is not corrupt.
“The incident involving the woman was related to the sopo collection issue, in which the sopo collector was denied extension of two months by the panchayat,” Braganza said, while stating that there was no question of corruption being behind the incident.
However, when questioned whether the panchayat will file a complaint with the cyber cell against the person who made the video viral, Braganza remained non-committal as he said that the incident happened outside the panchayat.
However, the panch involved in the video, Venacio Gonsalves, said they are going to file a complaint with the cyber cell on the issue so that the culprit is brought to book.
When questioned whether they suspect involvement of anybody in making the video viral, Gonsalves said he suspects the hand of a politician who he said wants to take control of the panchayat.
“Currently, the panchayat is in control of my friend Zenito Cardozo but the politician wants to take control and this could be the reason behind the viral video,” Gonsalves alleged.
Meanwhile, the woman seen in the video informed The Goan that the incident had nothing to do with the sopo collection issue.
“The panch owes me money and as he was not returning the same, I confronted him,” the woman added.
