Congress must unify oppn parties, not split them: GFP

MARGAO:

Goa Forward Party

(GFP) on Monday hit out at state Congress president Girish Chodankar over his statement that

GFP

president Vijai Sardesai had no right to demand a CBI inquiry into the road works of the public works department.


GFP spokesperson Prashant Naik accused Chodankar of attempting to drive a wedge between opposition parties when he should have been seeking unity. “It’s the right of the opposition party to take on the government over public issues. We have started taking on the government. Why does he want to split the opposition parties? Instead, we had expected Girish to join us (in attacking the government over bad roads),” Naik said.

Both Congress and GFP had demanded a CBI inquiry into the bad condition of roads as crores of rupees had been spent over the last couple of years over repairs of roads. Chodankar had later said that Sardesai had “no right” to talk about the issue of bad roads when he had claimed that it was his own government that was responsible for the maintenance of roads, and that the Parrikar-government was his “baby”.

Naik chose to attack Chodankar, questioning his ability to lead Congress. “His whole approach towards the party is questionable. When 10 MLAs defected to BJP, they took a long time to even file a disqualification petition against them before the speaker. They ought to have responded immediately,” Naik said.

He added, “When an important Congress MLA openly criticizes the party leadership, Girish would do well to think over these matters rather than poke his nose into other party’s affairs.” However, Naik had no convincing answer to a query on how the GFP expects support from Congress when Sardesai claimed to be a part of the BJP-led NDA at the Centre.