NCP OPPOSES ILLEGAL MINING AND WILL NOT PROTECT ANYONE INVOLVED IN SUCH ACTIVITY

PANJIM: The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), at state as well as national level, was strongly opposed to illegal mining and would not protect anyone involved in the same, top leaders said on Monday.  NCP state unit president Prof Surendra Sirsat and central observer, Ms Bharti Chavan, said that they were opposed to illegal mining and would not support any person who was involved in illegal mining.

When questioned about the national general secretary’s alleged involvement in illegal mining, Ms Chavan initially expressed her ignorance and then promised to look into it even as she said that he was appealing against the fine that he had been awarded, pointing to ambiguity in her and the party’s stand against illegal mining.

The party’s national secretary, Jeetendra Deshprabhu, who has been indicted by the Goa government for largescale alleged illegal mining, has been fined Rs 1.72 crore for carrying out alleged large-scale illegal mining of bauxite at Korgao, Pernem and has also been booked by the Crime Branch in the alleged illegal mining case along with top mining department officials, including the director of mines.

According to reports, the party’s co-ordinator Mr Prafulla Hede too has also been hauled up for alleged illegal mining by the government. Meanwhile, the NCP stated that the long awaited coordination committee meeting between itself and the Congress would take place by next month.

NCP’s central observer, Ms Bharthi Chavan told media that she had told the Chief Minister, Mr Digambar Kamat that they wanted a co-ordination committee meeting "every month, especially since the elections are coming close."

Admitting that there were a lot of "leakages" in the relationship between the Congress and NCP on governance issues, Ms Chavan said the "committee meeting not being held was a big leakage in itself."

Earlier, the NCP senior vice-president in charge of North Goa, Mr Suresh Parulekar warned the government that if illegalities were not sorted out then "we would take law into our own hands and the government would be responsible for the consequences".

"We will file contempt petition against the IGP, the panchayat and PI Devendra Gad," on the issue of an illegal construction coming up in Nerul and the government inaction on the issue," Mr Parulekar threatened.

Ms Chavan also told media that the coalition would be decided at a later stage but "the Congress is in no position to go on its own in the elections ," even as the president of the party, Prof Surendra Sirsat told media that the NCP was ready to fight it alone in all 40 constituencies.

The different committees of the state NCP unit for North Goa were also announced on Monday with Mr Parulekar saying that ward-wise village panchayat membership drive would be started soon and the process completed within two months. Mr Sirsat also told media that the present strength of the NCP was 30,000 and they were targeting 1,00,000 members.