Goa minister Vijai Sardesai clarifies "scum of the earth" comment, says he only referred to certain section of tourists

Panaji: Goa’s Agriculture Minister Vijai Sardesai, who courted controversy by terming domestic tourists as “scum of the earth”, on Saturday said it was a recent video of a tourist urinating from a bus on to a popular road that triggered the sentiment.

Sardesai, who also now claims that he was quoted out of context, also said that he is unapologetic about his Friday comments about domestic tourists being the “scum of the earth”, but clarified that this only applied to a “certain section” of them, not all.

“The people of Goa are disgusted with a few tourists, who come and use Goa as a dumping ground and who create nuisance. There are several instances, one of which is a video which has gone viral of a tourist urinating from the bus on one of Goa’s most popular and well done roads from Miramar to Dona Paula. So, I am speaking for Goa,” Sardesai said, in a fresh video released to the media on Saturday.

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“People of Goa believe that a small section of the 6.5 million tourists who have come to Goa have created the biggest nuisance. These people have no civic sense. They are the ones creating the maximum garbage and maximum nuisance in Goa. So there is a general feeling among the people of Goa that we need to re-orient our tourism to what it was before,” he said.

Sardesai has also stoked controversy by denigrating the credentials of tourists visiting Goa and accusing north Indians of trying to convert Goa into another Haryana.