Panaji, April 17
A day after a senior
Karnataka minister issued a threat against several thousand Goan IT
professionals living in Bengaluru, the Goa BJP on Friday replied in
equal measure, saying that Goa, too, hosted many Kannadigas who were
working in the government and private sector.
The comments were
made by Bharatiya Janata Party's Goa spokesperson Damodar Naik after the
alleged inflammatory speeches made by Karnataka's Higher Education
Minister R.V. Deshpande over demolition of illegal shanties in the Baina
area in south Goa.
Some of the shanties house Kannadigas and
the minister's subtle warning threatened several thousand Goan IT
professionals living in Bengaluru.
"He should be arrested
immediately and externed for making such statements," BJP spokesperson
Damodar Naik told reporters at a press conference at the BJP state
headquarters on Friday.
He also claimed that Deshpande should
know that there are many Kannadigas who had made Goa their home and were
living peacefully.
"Do not misunderstand my statement, but
there are many of them (Kannadigas) living in Goa in their own homes and
working in the private and government sector," Naik said.
On
Thursday, Deshpande had accused the BJP-led Goa government of trampling
on the rights of some Kannadiga occupants of the over 285 illegal
shanties, some of which have already been demolished and also warned
that Goa should not forget that 20,000 odd of its young workforce are
employed in the information technology sector in Bengaluru.
"Your
15,000 to 20,000 young Goans are working as IT professionals in
Bengaluru... don't ask any irresponsible questions," Deshpande said
aggressively, when asked by the media about the emerging differences
between Karnataka and Goa.
Disagreements first arose over the
alleged diversion of the Mhadei river water by the former and now over
the demolition of shanties at Baina, located 45 km from Panaji.
Deshpande
was speaking to reporters outside the chief minister's residence in
Panaji, where he had arrived to speak to Goa chief minister Laxmikant
Parsekar on the demolition issue.
Speaking to reporters later,
Parsekar expressed shock at Deshpande's statement and said that the
latter should not attempt to convert the issue into a Karnataka versus
Goa affair, simply because there were people from several other states,
including Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Bihar and Maharashtra
living in the same slum.
"Our people, whether they are in
Bengaluru, Pune or Mumbai, have not encroached there, like (the
encroachments) in Goa. They are well settled," Parsekar said, adding
that politicians should desist from making inflammatory speeches.
"Even
those people living in the slums are not from Karnataka alone. They are
from Maharashtra, Bihar, Andhra (Pradesh), Chhattisgarh, but the law of
the land applies to everyone. Therefore, please do not bring politics
to this," said Parsekar.
When asked if the BJP unit in Goa would
file a first information report against Deshpande, Naik said: "We have
asked the Goa government to take the strongest possible action... if the
inflammatory statements continue we will..."
