Panaji (Goa)
The Goa Forward Party (GFP) has taken a potshot at Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) over the ongoing controversy around Dr Jack Sequeira statue in Goa Legislative Assembly complex.
GFP President and cabinet minister Vijai Sardessai has expressed his anguish over MGP’s latest wish to move a resolution in the upcoming assembly session for installing statue of freedom fighters T B Cunha and Dr Ram Manohar Lohia. The demand comes after GFP decided to support resolution by Deputy Speaker Michael Lobo for statue of Sequeira.
“We look at MGP’s demands for statues with great amusement and utter disappointment. Amusement because it’s as if they discovered the word statue after our demand for Dr Sequeira’s, which the GFP, in keeping with our agenda of honouring Goan heroes, have successfully brought to the consciousness of the people. The move is so out of context and Ill-timed. A disappointment because by making this flurry of statue demands, MGP is trying to trivialise and marginalise the most important event in Goan history, and its leaders. It appears that apart from using Goan soil to merely contest elections, the MGP is not only disinterested in Goa-centric issues but also out to actively scuttle any such move,” the minister said.
Incidentally, both the regional parties are allies of BJP-led government.
Sardessai said that it is amusing again that the very name of the party is so rooted in the archaic past has no relevance to today’s Goa or Goemkar, and in stubbornly keeping their name Maharashtrawadi. “It seems that they are dreaming and eternally hopeful for another opinion poll. After the Opinion Poll, there’s only one wadi in Goa, and that’s Goemkarwadi. How can a party that cannot change its name expected to change the face of Goa? MGP’s attempt to dilute a solemn and respectable demand reflects their growing irrelevance, as GFP has succeeded in a new Goan awakening where Goemkars now feel proud of their heritage and culture. After so many years, GFP has brought the Goemkar central to the political narrative of the Goan state,” he added.
He stated that GFP reiterates its commitment for the recognition for Dr Sequeira, and ‘it will take more than such juvenile attempts to distract us from a popular demand.’
Besides Lobo, NCP legislator Churchill Alemao has also moved a resolution for Dr Sequeira statue while another BJP legislator Rajesh Patnekar has moved resolution for statue of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj. On Tuesday MGP threw a googly by announcing it’s decision to move resolution for statues of Cunha and Lohia in the assembly complex. It is not for the Speaker to decide whether or not to accept the resolutions or club the common ones into one.
TEAM TNV
