PANAJI: Former Goa Chief Minister and Member of Parliament Francisco Sardinha has alleged that abrogation of Article 370, which accorded special status to Jammu and Kashmir, was a hurriedly taken decision and aimed at diverting attention of the people from failure of Narendra Modi Government.
“The point is that they are total failure and that is the reason that they abrogated Article 370. Most of the people liked (the decision) but they (government) has no right (to abrogate the Article) without asking the people. They are also Indians, they also had their government. What they did was they extended the President’s Rule in order to abrogate the Article. They made Laddakh a union territory. What is the reason? They say they want to make progress. I am asking, from 2017 to 2019 there was President’s Rule, who stopped them from doing whatever development they wanted to do in the two regions. Who stopped them? This is nothing but hoodwinking the public. They brought this issue to divert attention from other issues,” Mr Sardinha, who represents South Goa Lok Sabha constituency, told UNI in an interview.
The senior Congress leader, who has held many portfolios in the state government from 1977 to 1994, opined that the Centre could have taken a hint from opinion poll conducted in Goa for its merger with Maharashtra and against it.
“In Goa some people wanted merger (with Maharashtra) other were against. What was done?. There was opinion poll. In a democracy majority rules. The biggest fault you can have, in politics or society, is that you think that you are right and all others are wrong. And this is what is happening at the Centre. They have got absolute majority and they don’t care for anything which they have reasonably shown,” he said.
Mr Sardinha also accused the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government at the Centre of making several promises but failing to fulfill them.
“They made many promises but have not fulfilled. So the first 100 days have been a total failure. I was going through most of their schemes, most of which are nothing but old Congress schemes which they have given new names. Some of them they have amalgamated while some they have changed in their names but they have not fulfilled in the last 100 days. Only what they have done is they have brought down the GDP (Gross Domestic Product) from eight per cent to below five per cent. Rupee is also sinking. They are lucky that oil prices have not shown to the extent when Congress was in power,” he said.
(agencies)
Follow our WhatsApp channel
