PANAJI
Less than 24 hours after Chief Minister Pramod Sawant assured the Legislative Assembly that he would meet the Ministry of External Affairs over the dual passport issue, opposition members tried cornering the government for its lackadaisical approach towards resolving the crisis until it steered discussion on the issue in ongoing session.
The Question Hour on the concluding day of the Assembly saw a heated debate with Congress' Altone D'Costa and AAP MLA Venzy Viegas among others accusing the government of neglecting the issue.
“We are in touch with both “ the Ministry of Home Affairs and the MEA to resolve the issue. We are concerned and sensitive to the current issue,” Sawant said, reiterating his assurance made on Friday about scheduling an appointment with MEA on February 17-18 to resolve the issue.
While he kept refuting allegations, opposition leaders also questioned the increasing number of passport surrenders to which the CM claimed that it was not within the government’s purview to stop persons from surrendering their citizenship to migrate abroad.
During the discussion, St Andre MLA Viresh Borkar stood in support of the discussion and presented the data regarding the percentage of Indian passport surrenders. Borkar revealed that in 2018, the surrender rate stood at around 74 per cent, 64 per cent in 2019, and further 45.3 per cent, 44.9 per cent, and 45.2 per cent in 2020, 2021, and 2022 respectively.
D’Costa alleged that thousands of Goans were surrendering their Indian Passports during the double sarkar regime. “More than 28,000 Goans have surrendered their Indian Passports in 10 years. In 2022, 1285 Goans surrendered their citizenship,” D’Costa said.
In reply, the CM yet again informed the House that the government has no authority over persons who voluntarily surrender their citizenship. He also emphasized the migration and surrendering of Indian passports happened even before.
“As per the records of the last three years, the Regional Passport Office (RPO) in Panaji received over 2,000 applications for surrendering of Indian Passport after obtaining Portuguese citizenship. During this period, 114 passports were revoked. If anyone is going (travelling abroad to settle) willingly, how can the government stop them? As I said, we will deal with the current issue (over revocation of passports) but we cannot stop people from going abroad (by willingly surrendering their passports),” the CM said adding that "there are various reasons for this."
It was on July 23, 2023, the MHA wrote to the State government that they do not maintain the data on the surrendering of Indian Passports, adding that the details are maintained by the MEA. The CM said a report is awaited from the MHA while another Opposition MLA lamented that it was “disheartening to see that the government is not bothered.”
As per the written reply, RPO Panaji’s data revealed that around 10,029 Indian passports have been surrendered in the last five years by persons who have obtained Portuguese citizenship.
