MARGAO
Nationalist Congress party (NCP) MLA Churchill Alemao on Friday said he is not in favour of an alliance with other political parties, but maintained that he would go by the decision of the Party High Command on stitching alliances with like-minded parties to fight the 2022 Assembly election.
He further said Chief Minister Pramod Sawant has assured him to call a meeting within 15 days to address the issue of free meters for the tourist taxis and rollback on the decision on cancellation of tourist taxi licences.
The Benaulim MLA declined to comment on the entry of arch rival and former Benaulim MLA Mickky Pacheco into the Congress fold.
Saying he is personally not in favour of an alliance with other political parties, Churchill said the NCP has the capability to contest at least 24 seats on its own. “If you ask me personally, I am not interested in the NCP aligning with other parties to unitedly fight the coming election. But, NCP chief Sharad Pawar has informed me that the party is working on an alliance with the Congress and other parties to jointly contest the coming election,” he said.
He said the people of Goa will extend their support for an alliance of the Congress, NCP and Goa Forward, but hastened to add that only God and the leaders of these parties know whether they will unite or not.
The Benaulim MLA recalled that the NCP had asked the Congress to leave just two seats for the party, but then Congress Goa desk in-charge, Digvijai Singh refused to go for the alliance. In fact, Digvijai told me that the Congress cannot nominate me in Benaulim because of a pending case, but did not apply the criteria to Digambar Kamat.
Churchill sounded a note of caution saying the NCP will contest in as many as 24 seats if the proposed alliance with the Congress and other parties does not materialise.
Meanwhile, commenting on the tourist taxi and shack owners’ problems, Churchill said that Chief Minister Pramod Sawant has assured him to take a positive decision in giving free meters to the tourist taxi operators within 15 days.
He also exuded confidence that the government would rollback the decision to cancel the licence of the tourist taxi operators.
Similarly, Churchill said he has requested the government to drastically reduce the shack licence fees for the coming season. “The shack owners have suffered during the Covid-19 pandemic. They have suffered losses during last year,” he added.
...Says CM has promised to make seafarers’ pension scheme permanent
MARGAO: Benaulim MLA Churchill Alemao has said that Chief Minister Pramnod Sawant has promised to make permanent the pension scheme for retired seafarers and widows.
He, however, has requested the beneficiaries of the ongoing pension scheme to submit the life certificates to the Director, NRI Affairs in order to receive the pension of the last three months.
He told the media that as many as 800 beneficiaries of the pension scheme have still not submitted their life certificates to the NRI office till date. “Without these life certificates, the department will not release the pension of the beneficiaries,” he said.
Churchill pointed out that the NRI department has extended the time till August 25 to submit the life certificates so that the department can disburse the pension of the three months.
