MEETING OVER THE UGLY VASCO INCIDENT

PANJIM: The spat between two state leaders of the nationalist congress party Jose Philip D’Souza and Francisco Xavier Pacheco in Vasco on Tuesday, can further weaken the party.  At an emergency meeting called at the party headquarters in Panjim on Wednesday the Revenue minister and Vasco MLA has said that he had an evidence against his party colleague Mr Pacheco to prove that he was distributing money to defeat his candidates while Mr Pacheco said he was at a public place hence the question of distributing money does not arise

Smashed Car in which Mickky Pacheco travelled to

Speaking to the media first, the former Tourism Minister said that he was not distributing money at Vasco on Tuesday night and warned Jose Philip of retaliation. “He put his hand on me and I will never spare him. You can keep this on record. He put a hand on me in the public place where I was having my food OK? Which I am not going to tolerate and I will not spare him in the rest of my life”. Mickky told the media.

Mickky also said “See I don’t have to ring a bell and do what I have to do.” He further reiterated saying “You see before I could tell something there was a people from Vasco, they came and explained our party members what happened”

According to the version of Jose Philip who is also the party president, it was he who pushed his party colleague into his car to save him from the attack by his supporters. Mr. D’Souza also claimed that he had proof that Mickky was trying to distribute money on Tuesday night in his constituency.

D’Souza had this to say “Because all the supporters were going, I too went with them. He (Pacheco) had come to Maharaja Hotel and was just preparing to distribute the money which he was carrying in a bag. What I am trying to say is why did Mickky come to our constituency and started causing disturbances in our constituency, our youth which is wrong and is also an anti party activity.”

He further said that if Mickky is blaming him for assaulting him, then that is wrong because he himself gave the statement that Jose Philip has not assaulted me but pushed me away. “If I did not push him aside, then Mickky would have got heavy beating from the angry supporters and the strength of our supporters was about 800”. He said.

The committee first heard what Mr. D’Souza had to say before giving Pacheco a chance to tell his version of the story. NCP spokesperson Trajano D’Mello said the meeting was held to know the facts of the incident at Vasco on Tuesday night. “We have taken the stock of the situation and taken very serious note of the happenings at Vasco. We have decided to place the whole scene with the High Command to take suitable, corrective measures that such things may not repeat again” said Trajano.

The supporters of Pacheco and D’Souza have both filed complaints against each other at the Vasco Police Station. Even as the former tourism minister was refered to GMC Bambolim for medical examination on Tuesday night. The usually controversial Pacheco had resigned as tourism minister in June this year after being booked for Culpable homicide in the death of his close friend Nadia Torrado.

Earlier on Tuesday night, the supporters of Jose Philip D’Souza, allegedly attacked Pacheco at the Maharaja Hotel at Vasco for distributing money among voters to defeat candidate backed by D’Souza in the Civic polls to be held on October 31st. The high drama of muscle power took place at about 8:40 PM when the D’Souza supporters noticed that Mickky was with some Vasco-ites in the hotel. Mr. D’Souza along with his supporters barged into the hotel and assaulted Mr. Pacheco. During the commotion bear bottles and glasses were broken forcing Mickky to take to his heels.

More than 200 supporters of D’Souza marched to the Vasco police along with him. A complaint was lodge by the ex-counsellor A. Fernandes, Mr Salgaonkar & Estella Dias accusing Pacheco of distributing money to voters to defeat Mr. D’Souza’s candidate specially his wife and brother in the Municipal elections on 31st October.