Girish Chodankar terms meeting of Goa CM with mining dependents yet another farce

The meeting of Goa Chief Minister Pramod Sawant with the mining dependents was yet another farce put up by him to 'bargain' for more time to resume the mining industry, said Goa Pradesh Congress Committee President Girish Chodankar.

"The meeting of Chief Minister Dr Pramod P Sawant with the mining dependents was yet another farce put up by him to bargain for more time to resume the mining industry," said Chodankar.

"The Chief Minister has been giving reasons, one after another, delaying the further resumption of mining activity. The meeting of Friday also remained inconclusive, as expected, because the government has no plan to restart the mining," he added.

The GPCC President further said Sawant has conveniently forgotten his statement about his scheduled follow-up meeting with Union Mines Minister Pralhad Joshi and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, which was falling out of his much-discussed Delhi visit, Chodankar stated.

None of the meetings happened even though it is going to be almost a month that CM had visited the national capital, hurriedly and met the PM, he said.

"Sawant should admit that BJP has no political will to resume the mining activity as the party do not want people to get economically better. The entire game plan is to keep people poor so that they could be exploited during elections, which is not going to happen in future considering the immense anger against BJP amongst the mining dependents," said Chodankar.

Chodankar said that the BJP-led government should pronounce their accurate plan to resume the mining activity. "Why farce of meetings after meetings right from PM, Home Minister, Environment minister and so on since 2012 ? "

What stops the mining from resuming when BJP is in power in the state and also in the centre, he said.

Chodankar also pointed out that the state government has paid blind eye towards the issue raised by truck operators who are asking for a better rate for the transportation of the ore.

"Government should understand that resuming transportation without giving proper financial benefit to the truck owners serves no purpose. Give economical justice to locals by Keeping out all BJP Dalals involved in ore transportation," demanded Chodankar.

"We strongly demand that CM should give a final date for resumption of legal mining in Goa without any further delay or he should declare that his defective government cannot start mining," he added.

( With inputs from ANI )