Opposition parties in Goa demanded the resignation of Chief Minister Pramod Sawant following a statement made by former Goa Governor Satya Pal Malik on Monday.
Malik, who served as the Governor of Goa from October, 2019 to August, 2020, said in an interview to a television channel on Monday evening: “There was corruption in the Goa government in handling everything”.
He said he was transferred from Goa because he spoke against Chief Minister Sawant. “Corruption makes me angry and hurts me. The day the lockdown was announced there (in Goa), the government said they would not even allow food shops to open and that they would serve (food and eatables) door-to-door which was impossible. At that time there was some company which gave money. At that time Congress and others had brought this to my notice and asked me to look into it. I told the Prime Minister. He (Centre) asked the people involved in this. He would never have said that this is what he was doing. But I knew it.”
Congress and AAP staged a protest at Azad Maidan in Panaji on Tuesday amid heavy police deployment. Workers from both sides were surrounded in police vans after they raised slogans on the streets adjacent to the grounds. Both Congress and AAP demanded the resignation of Sawant.
Joining the chorus were the Goa Forward Party (GFP), the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) and independent legislators Rohan Khunte and the All India Trinamool Congress (TMC).
Speaking to reporters in Delhi, AICC general secretary Randeep Singh Surjewala said, “The Goa CM and his entire cabinet should be sacked. He has no right to continue in office after the disclosures made by the former governor of the state. FIR should be registered against him and he should face investigation.
“It is sad that the PM was aware of this but instead of punishing the corrupt, he decided to shoot the messenger,” he said.
GFP president Vijay Sardesai on Tuesday met Governor PS Sreedharan Pillai and submitted a memorandum to his office demanding the dismissal of the Sawant government and imposition of President’s rule in the state. Like the Congress, they also demanded an inquiry under a retired Supreme Court judge. Sardesai said, “We see it as a suitable case to approach the High Court to file an FIR against the government, with the chargesheet being filed within 90 days of the FIR.”
While Sawant did not comment about Malik’s revelations in his interview Goa BJP General Secretary Damodar Naik said on Tuesday, ‘The parties which are demanding the resignation of the CM are themselves immersed in corruption. This is just a publicity stunt they are doing to create a certain atmosphere against the ruling party.” Regarding Malik’s statement, Naik said, “What he said is completely wrong. There is such a thing as morality and propriety. Why did he say this just a month before the election? Have these things come to him (Malik) just now, when the election is approaching? The governor should maintain some decorum. As governor he had the power to accept or reject whatever was happening in the government. An honest person (Sawant) runs this government, he is going door-to-door with Sarkar Tumchya Dari (Government program at your doorstep) which is benefitting thousands of people. The Prime Minister has also praised him and called him an energetic leader.
In his interview, Malik had also said that at the beginning of the pandemic, he had asked the government to shut down mining trucks as they could be carriers of the virus but the government did not. “Trucks of miners will pass through the area near the airport. Corona could have spread through them. I asked them to shut them down but they didn’t. And that’s how corona hit,” Malik said.
He also said that he had objected to the proposal to demolish the existing Raj Bhavan in Goa and build a new one. “It’s a heritage property and a working property that didn’t need to be pulled down. I said there was no need for it. I was living in a one-and-a-half room and I could continue to do that. I said that when we got financial. We should not have done so if we were under pressure,” Malik said in his interview. The motion was then postponed but recently revived by Governor Pillai.
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