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‘Goans are fortunate BJP was not ruling during Opinion Poll era as saffron party would have merged Goa with M'rashtra'

MARGAO
Claiming that RSS leader Deendayal Upadhyaya was in favour of Goa’s merger, Goa Pradesh Congress Committee President Girish Chodankar on Saturday said that Goans are fortunate that BJP was not ruling during the Opinion Poll era, as the saffron party would have merged Goa into Maharashtra, despite victory in Opinion Poll by tactics. He was speaking at the 53rd Opinion Poll Day function organised by Congress at the South Goa district office here on Saturday.

Leader of the Opposition Digambar Kamat, former Minister Aleixo Sequeira, GPCC Vice President M K Sheikh, Altinho Gomes, Alton D’Costa, Sankalp Amonkar, Pratima Coutinho, Amarnath Panjikar and others were present on the occasion.

Chodankar said that BJP’s Dadagiri is clearly visible in the State and at the Centre, asserted that the ruling party would have created hindrances to protect the identity of Goa. 

“The leader of RSS and Bharatiya Jan Sangh, Deendayal Upadhyaya was in favour of merging Goa with Maharashtra. Hence, even after Goa won the Opinion Poll and protected its identity, he demanded merger. Hence if they were in power during that period, we never know what tricks they would have had applied to achieve their goal,” Chodankar said.

Opposition leader, Digambar Kamat praised former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and said that even she never tried to impose anything on people. 

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3 Covid deaths, 83 cases

THE GOAN NETWORK
Published Jan 17, 2021, 12:28 AM IST
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PANAJI Three more succumbed to Covid-19 in Goa raising the victim count to 756.The deceased persons include a 58-year-old man from Margao, a 65 year-old man from Sanquelim and a 73-year-old man from Siolim.On Saturday, 83 new cases of the infection were detected from among the 1,670 samples tested in the last 24 hours.With this, the total confirmed cases now stand 52,345. Of these, 50,712 have recovered while 877 are presently active. The recovery rate is 96.88 per cent.

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