The Congress in Goa has written a letter to Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari demanding the dismissal of the Pramod Sawant-led BJP government in the state for its failure to handle the Covid-19 pandemic.
In a letter written to Koshyari on Thursday, Goa Pradesh Congress Committee President Girish Chodankar wrote that over 2,000 (cumulative mortality figure) Goans had died and continue to die for want of oxygen, ventilator beds, essential medicines and hospital beds.
“While all the chief ministers in the country took effective steps to control the pandemic through lock-down and curfews and by procuring not only essential drugs and oxygen needed by Covid-affected people, our Hon’ble chief minister continued to ridicule us all. He created a false impression by telling the people that they need not be scared of the pandemic. His often-repeated rhetoric that “Bhivpachi Garaj Naa” – no one need be afraid – created a sense of complacency among the people of Goa and invited everyone from the rest of the country to come to Goa,” Chodankar wrote.
Chodankar wrote to the governor that there was a “complete breakdown of Constitutional machinery” under Sawant’s leadership. His letter read: “The existing poor facilities have been stretched too far to provide any solace to the people of Goa. The non-government agencies and individuals including our partymen have been relentlessly and selflessly rendering their services to the affected people and their families. Your government agencies are busy harassing them instead of enlisting them as volunteers. As such we are of a firm view that allowing your corrupt, defective, insensitive and ineffective government to continue in office will be inviting further misfortune to the state in terms of the suffering of people due to Covid-19 and collapse of the economy.”
Reacting to the letter, Goa BJP President Sadanand Tanavade, said that there was no question of failure of the Goa government. “Has there ever been a pandemic like Covid-19? How can they say it was a failure? If earlier it was handled well and now it wasn’t then you have something to compare with. If such a pandemic has never happened before how can anyone call it a failure?”
He said that Congress had nothing better to do than to make such claims. “Is Goa the only state where there is Covid-19? No one knew that the second wave was going to be like this. In fact, Goa is the only state providing Covid-19 patients meals, giving home isolation kits to patients for free. And it is only our BJP workers who are out on the field helping people. No other party workers are doing that,” said Tanavade.
