CM should clear the air over 3 political names muddied in the deal
Some of the big political twists and U-turns are very hard to fathom. One such case is the alleged infamous SEZ scam. Twelve years later, what was seen as a multi-crore land scam has died a silent death. Lest we forget, it was Manohar Parrikar, the Opposition voice, which reverberated through the hallowed precincts of the Legislative complex during the Congress rule screaming his lungs out of a scam. The very man as Chief Minister has now virtually giving the accused legislators and others an easy way out and an honourable exit.
On paper the SEZ settlement appears a win-win situation for the state with repossession of 38.4 lakh square metres of industrial land at the cost of just the principal amount and interest put together. The equation looks even rosier with the Chief Minister currently valuing the property at Rs 600 crore. We are not baffled with our IITian Chief Minister’s math. It is the brushing away of the scam which he was fighting against all along that comes as a mysterious surprise.
Let us remind the Chief Minister that it was he who initiated an FIR in August 2012 through Goa Police’s Anti-Corruption Branch under sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 after the Bombay High Court held the land allotment to the seven companies as “illegal”.
Let us also remind the Chief Minister that in his complaint to the then Director General of Police Aditya Arya, he had accused Pratapsing Rane who held the Chief Minister’s chair, Luizinho Faleiro who was the Industries Minister and the then chairman of Goa Industrial Development Corp Chandrakant Babu Kavalekar, accusing all three of direct involvement in a scam.
Parrikar has gone on record that there is prima facie evidence to show that the GIDC’s board of directors, its officials and other public servants and beneficiaries of SEZ allotments conspired together and there was an abetment of commission of offences and gross deviations and violations of rules, and forgery of records in the allotment of SEZ plots.
However, 12 years later when the government decides to end the SEZ saga in the interest of the State, not a word is spoken about the scam and the men behind it. The people of the State are given to believe that all the allegations and charges have been settled along with the SEZ land.
Has the government, by closing FIR against the parties, swept all allegations of a multi-crore scam under the carpet? Did the Chief Minister provide a safe and honourable escape route to the three legislators who were alleged to have connived to strike deals? Can the then Congress spokesperson and now Panchayat Minister Mauvin Godinho who had slammed Parrikar of political arm-twisting, throw some light? Strange are the ways politicians work. Parrikar needs to clarify if the SEZ settlement means a virtual clean chit to all those whom he called scamsters. Or does he go by the old adage “all is well that ends well”.
