A 70-year-old resident, Olavio Fernandes (a former Assistant Director of Agriculture) from Santa Cruz died after suffering from a suspected heart attack during the Santa Cruz gram sabha meeting on Sunday. He was reportedly raising the issue of reducing the fees collected on transfer of flats from the builders to the owners during the above meeting but was being interrupted by two individuals which made him upset. Well, this same pattern is followed during most gram sabha meetings across Goa. Rowdy supporters are brought by the ruling panch members to deliberately create chaos and stop people from raising genuine issues during gram sabha meetings to hide their own misdeeds. I therefore personally feel that until and unless the concerned authorities, especially the Directorate of Panchayat, BDO, etc take note of the above malpractices of the ruling panch members in villages, Goans will continue to boycott such gram sabha meetings and incidents like the one mentioned above will continue to happen across Goa.
