CHURCHILL TRIES TO SAVE FACE ON MERGER STATEMENT

MARGAO: Reacting to the controversy he has kicked off in Karnataka, over his remarks on merging certain areas of Karnataka to Goa, the PWD Minister, Mr Churchill Alemao, on Saturday defiantly argued that if an opinion poll was held today, 99 per cent of the people living in those areas would opt for a merger.

 This statement of Churchill came in as a face saving for himself and avoiding more embarassment. According to the Karwaris they have no intentions of merging with Goa as defined by Churchill. Our correspondent in Goa spoke to a few Karwar residents who on condition of anonymity flatly rebuffed Churchill’s above claim. One who identified himself as Ravi Pednekar from Uttar Kinnara said that Churchill has lost his mental balance and hence is springing up with new foolish ideas of making money for his personal accounts.

Ravi also said that none of the Karwaris are ready to join Goa as they are happy there with ministers and politicians who are lesser corrupt than Churchill Alemao and others in Goa Assembly. Another person said that Churchill is trying to save his face by his statement of sticking to his statement of merger. They also said that he is using Ravidra Kelekar for his own means to make money out of it.

Reiterating that this was not his idea but the idea of renowned Konkani protagonist, Ravindra Kelekar, he said that people from that area come to Goa for employment and said that even though the area was represented by Ms Margaret Alva, not much development had taken place there.

Speaking at a press conference at a Margao hotel on Saturday, Mr Alemao said that even though a complaint had been filed by someone over some comments he had made at a function at Sadhashiv Gad on Wednesday, the complaint had not been entertained by the authorities.

The comments were made at a function organised by Gadinadu Nagarika Vedike at Sadashivagad near Karwar, and he had apparently asked for the support of Konkani speaking people of Karwar and surrounding areas to merge the area with Goa.

He however did not back down from his views on the merger, saying that the people wanted the merger and it would be beneficial to the state as the area would increase. This area that Mr Alemao is talking about is slightly larger than the Goan land mass but has around 11 lakh Konkani speaking people.

The Kaiga project and the Seabird project come within the area, that is said to be rich in minerals like Manganese, but is not developed and there had been lot of complaints from locals against discrimination by the local government.

On Friday, after the function, Janashakthi Vedike president, Mr Madhav Naik had filed a complaint against Mr Alemao accusing him of provoking the Konkani speaking people of Karwar against the Kannada speaking locals, in a written complaint to Uttara Kannada SP Mr Raman Gupta.

He alleged that Mr Alemao had made a speech against the Karnataka government alleging that successive governments in Karnataka had neglected Karwar, in Konkani majority areas, that compared to Goa, there is little development in Karwar.  The complaint also alleges that Mr Alemao asked the people to agitate against the Karnataka government and separate Karwar and other Konkani speaking areas from Karnataka.