Goa Congress to launch statewide agitation, awareness campaigns on Friday to demand 'full-time' chief minister

Panaji: The Goa Congress will launch a statewide agitation on Friday to demand a “full-time” chief minister for the state in place of the ailing Manohar Parrikar, a senior party leader said Wednesday. Goa is in the “ICU”, state Congress committee chief Girish Chodankar said. Parrikar, 62, has been recuperating at his private residence near here since 14 October, when he was discharged from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi. Last week, hundreds of people, including some Congress leaders, had marched to Parrikar’s residence, demanding his resignation and a “full-time” chief minister for Goa. [caption id=“attachment_5377901” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  File image of Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar. PTI[/caption] “We have now decided to go to people with the issue and launch a taluka (administrative division)-wise agitation,” Chodankar told PTI. The Congress will begin its agitation from Bicholim on 30 November, followed by Pernem on 1 December. All the talukas will be covered subsequently in due course of time, he said. The party will hold “awareness campaigns” across the state, Chodankar said. “We will expose this (Bharatiya Janata Party-led) government…we will highlight how Goa has suffered due to the absence of a full-time chief minister. The last cabinet meeting was also not chaired by the chief minister. Goa is in the ICU (intensive care unit),” he said. The Congress leader said they are demanding restoration of governance in the state. “We want a full-time chief minister who will hold regular cabinet meetings and advice Goa governor. Right now, nobody knows what is happening. Who is running the government in the chief minister’s name? We don’t know who is signing the documents and who is taking the decisions,” he said. It is clear from the photographs released recently by government that Parrikar is not in a position to take any decision, Chodankar claimed. He said the Congress’ agitation on this issue started long back when they observed a “century” (100 days) without the chief minister. The state Congress leaders had also protested when BJP president Amit Shah was in Goa and met the governor four-five times, he noted.