I do not want to speak about the Velingkar as he is the part of another political party having their own agenda. We have our agenda and we are not concerned with the others, the people of Goa will decide whose to vote to the power, Parrikar told the press conference held in the city. Parrikar was talking to the reporters in the pre-election press conference of BJP party. He made the statement that RSS (Sangh Pariwar) has always been the part of BJP and it has nothing to do with the local Sangh. “I do not believe in the Sangh which you (press reporters) are taking about, I believe in the only Sangh that has their headquarters in Nagpur and it is always with BJP,” he said. Mr. Parrikar spoke elaborately about the casinos, revenue generation, and unemployment and promised that his party will fulfill all the promises this time.
According to Mr. Parrikar, the BJP government has fulfilled all their election promises leaving few lapses behind and the same will be covered in the next five-year tenure. He blamed it all on the mining ban in Goa which according to him used to generate around 26% income of total revenue generated by the state. He also pointed out the new developments that has came up and that also caused additional revenue burden to the state exchequer.
Mr. Parrikar denied that the Casinos not removed from the Mandovi is the failure of the government saying that, his party has been constantly working on finding out the alternate location for the casino before removing them from the River Mandovi. “Our government took the decision of moving the casinos out of the Mandovi river but we still do not have an alternate place visible for the relocation of casinos. Only once that happens, the Casinos will be removed from river Mandovi,” said Parrikar.
he stressed on the point that, his government made the promise to the people of Goa that, they (BJP) will not extend the licenses of the casinos anymore. “Once we find out the solution (for relocations) we will relocate the casinos but the tenure of the license will remain the same and it will not be extended any further. “Our new manifesto (BJP Manifesto) per say does not have anything about the casinos. It is an administrative decision which we have taken in the last government to remove them from the Mandovi by finding an appropriate place for the relocations so that they (Casinos) does not become an eyesore,” Parrikar told the news reporters.
Meanwhile, he did not fail to target the congress for the plotting of SEZ scam. Stating that his government did not manage to handle the issues related to the tourism sector and industrialisation due to the SEZ scam is done by the then ruling government (Congress) “In 2010 – 2011, the Congress did big SEZ scam in which 36 lakh start land of IDC was given to SEZ without following any procedure. Presently the court case is going on in this matter and due to that we could not make use of the land as it has been locked by the supreme court,” said Parrikar.
Coming back to the unemployment, Mr. Parrikar said that there will be the creation of around 50 thousand jobs in the near future. “Only creation of the jobs will not help but the state also needs the skilled manpower,” said Parrikar. Mr. Parrikar ruled out the direct competition with any ruling party saying that BJP is the focal point of the victory and it is everywhere.
