Bengaluru: Congress leader Amarnath Panjikar on Wednesday January 4 said the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government has betrayed the people of Goa over the issue of Mhadei river and is now trying to divert everyone’s attention by blaming the Congress.
Panjikar, the party’s Media Cell Chairman, said the BJP has mastered the art of diverting the attention of the people from the core issues.
“The recent blame-game by Goa Chief Minister Pramod Sawant pointing fingers at the Congress party over the Mhadei issue is an attempt to divert the attention,” he said.
“BJP’s double engine government has created a mess over the Mhadei river issue. However, Chief Minister Pramod Sawant is blaming Congress, it is an attempt to divert the attention of the people from the betrayal of Goans by the BJP government,” he said.
Sawant had criticised opposition parties for not attending the ‘All Party Meeting’ convened on Monday to discuss the steps to be taken to fight the battle of ‘Saving Mhadei’.
The state government move came after the Central government approved the Detailed Project Report of Karnataka for the disputed Kalasa-Bhanduri dam project.
“Chief Minister must immediately meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi and get the approval given to the DPR of Kalasa-Bhanduri Project withdrawn or he should resign for his failure to protect river Mhadei,” Panjikar said.
According to Panajikar, it was the Congress government which constituted the Mhadei Water Dispute Tribunal.
“The facts and figures show that the BJP government after coming to power in 2012 has consistently compromised on the interest of Goans. I want to remind the Chief Minister that the betrayal on Mhadei began on December 21, 2017 when the then Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar wrote a letter to the Karnataka BJP compromising on the issue to give political advantage to Karnataka in the elections,” he said.
“I challenge the BJP government to produce a single document to prove that Congress compromised on Mhadei,” Panjikar said.
“… the BJP government is ruling at the Centre, Karnataka and Goa. It is clear that the connivance of the BJP governments has resulted in diversion of water and injustice to Goa. We warn the BJP government not to adopt blame games to divert attention from its failure to protect Mhadei. If the government does not act, the entire state of Goa will come on roads with massive protests,” Panjikar said.
