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PANAJI
Supreme Court advocate Suhas Volvoikar has said that the Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar had raised the mining scam issue in the assembly and stated that the government lost Rs 4,000 crore, “however, no concrete steps have been taken by the BJP government to investigate the scam.”
Volvoikar was addressing the media alongwith GSM president Anand Shirodkar, Arvind Bhatikar, Hrudainath Shirodkar, and others on Wednesday.
Volvoikar said that Parrikar is struggling to regain power and Goans should rethink before casting their vote.
“The BJP had raised several issues before the last Assembly elections in 2012 and promised to provide a corruption-free government. But what has happened in more than three years is U-turns. U-turn on special status, casinos, regional plan, price hike and people are forced to take to the streets for their demands,” he
said.
He said the Shah commission has declared mining irregularities at over Rs 35,000 crore; the BJP must explain to the people what steps have been initiated to probe the matter.
Speaking further, he said that nearly 40 FIRs were filed in different police stations by NGO Goa Paryavaran Sauraksha Sangharsh Samiti but till date no action has been initiated.
Speaking about the Regional Plan 2012, he said that Parrikar had promised to revise the Regional Plan, however it has been put into cold storage and reopened ODPs have already been exposed by the
media.
Though several promises were made to move all casinos out of river Mandovi by the end of 2015, the casinos are still operating,
he said.