Casinos in Goa, specially the offshore ones have created a big controversy in Goa, the political parties in Goa are playing the blame game by throwing the blame on each other for the existence of the casinos in the Mandovi River but none of them seems taking any serious steps to practically pushing out the casinos to meet the demand of the majority of the public in Goa. Now it seems like the game has come to an end with the recent statement of congress suprimo (GPCC President) in Goa Mr. Luizinho Faleiro, on Monday admitted that his party, while in power, had made a big mistake by permitting the casino entry in Goa. “We made a mistake,” Faleiro said.
Now Mr. Faleiro is feeling all over guilty about the act which his party had performed while they were in power and is humbly requesting the ruling government to not allow any further extension into the licenses to the casinos in Goa. “Don’t renew the licenses of these casinos… we will support the ruling government in this step. Let us say ‘enough is enough”. Faleiro said. He further continued saying that the casinos should be stopped from operating all together as they are the reason behind the ruining of lives of many Goans. “A lot of young people and their families have been destroyed due to the gambling at the casinos,” he said
To the question of media about the ruling government’s stand on the casino operations in Goa, Mr. Faleiro did not wait to fire a shot on the state government saying that it was the election manifesto of the present government and they had promised to do away with the casinos if elected to power, “But they have now made a U-turn,” he alleged. When asked if moving the offshore casinos to sea would be a remedy, Faleiro said, “Casinos are a scourge affecting everybody. If they are bad onshore then they will also be bad offshore.”
“Initially, when off shore casinos came to Goa, they were meant to be away from the city in the sea not in rivers. These vessels have no business to be in the rivers,” Faleiro said. He also called the act of ports minister of moving the casinos in Aguada Bay which overlooks Miramar beach, is just eyewash, “This is all rubbish, it’s an eye wash, it’s like shifting the vessels from one point to another point of the river. BJP in its manifesto had promised to shift the vessels out of river Mandovi and not to another point of the river,” the GPCC president said. Mr. Faleiro also gave an example of Goa State Pollution Control Board’s stand, that river Mandovi is getting polluted due to the casinos. “We may not worship rivers but we respect the rivers and the GSPCB report says Mandovi is fully polluted and the river cannot take more pollution,” Faleiro said.
According to this it seems like that congress has taken totally new turn by taking a stand of removing the casinos completely out of Goa and since it is not possible to do that, now they want to take the casinos into the deep sea. Mr. Faleiro has said that if in case BJP government is very keen on relocating the casino vessels from Mandovi River, they should make sure that the licenses are not renewed unless the boats shifted to sea. By saying this congress has presented another challenge in front of the present government, as the casinos are one of the major sources of revenue generation for the state and the decision of moving them into the sea may result into exit of casinos from Goa all together. What do you think? Please leave your valuable comments and suggestion on this news article to enable us write some more for you.
Source: NT
