PANAJI: Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) president Sharad Pawar has squarely blamed the Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar for shutting down the mining industry in the state as the Chief Minister of Goa in 2012.
Addressing the media in Panaji, Pawar said that the NCP during its election campaign will raise the issues affecting the people of the state due to the mis-governance of the BJP at the state as well as the national level.
“We feel that the then chief minister (Manohar) Parrikar is responsible for the entire episode. He has taken certain decision, which was also followed by the Congress minister in the Union government Jayanti Natarajan,” he stated.
He further said that due to the decision of Parrikar, entire mining operations in the state were closed adding, “It has severely affected a sizeable section which was working in the mining sector. There was unemployment, the entire area where the mines are, was looking like a desert with no jobs and restaurants and every business facing serious problems.”
Taking a dig at the Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the issue of demonetisation, Pawar said that the process led to mass unemployment in the country.
Stating that people waited for 50 days in the hope of something good happening, he said, “Under MNREGA scheme during the last three years that is between 2013-2016, those who attended employment guarantee work throughout India in months of November – December – January, that figure on average was between 30 – 35 lakh per day. And after demonetisation decision, as per the government of India data, that figure has jumped to 82 lakh… That clearly establishes that a sizeable number of the population has lost their jobs.”
Pointing at the failure of Modi to bring back black money from the Swiss banks, the former Union minister said, “Looks like that after assuming the power of the Prime Minister, he visited to Switzerland but it appeared from the media that there was no cooperation from the Swiss banks and therefore come empty handed. After returning when people began to question, the currency ban decision was taken on the pretext that the government will attack the black money.”