Goa assembly speaker Ramesh Tawadkar has raised an alarm against the funds distributed by art and culture minister Govind Gaude to various local clubs and social institutions to organise cultural events in his Canacon constituency.
“Gaude broke protocol by not informing the local MLA (Tawadkar) before distributing the government grant through his department. The data which I have got is of two gram panchayat jurisdictions in which approximately Rs 26 lakh was distributed last July for organising cultural events or fests. In July, no such function was organised as this part of Goa receives heavy rain,” he told News18.
Tawadkar added that 11 sarpanches from his constituency have written to Goa Chief Minister Pramod Sawant and alerted him about misuse of government funds.
Reacting to the Speaker’s demand, Goa Forward Party chief Vijay Sairdesai sought the resignation of the minister.
“The honourable Speaker of the Assembly Ramesh Tawadkar’s allegation of a scam in the Art and Culture Ministry, and his accusation of misappropriation of funds by the minister has to be viewed with the utmost seriousness and attention it deserves. I stand vindicated as I have raised this issue myself many times before but to no avail. Government of Goa must immediately launch a comprehensive and independent investigation into this affair. The minister’s position has become untenable now with such scathing comments from the assembly’s presiding authority, and I demand that he step down and face the inquiry,” he said.
General secretary of the Goa Forward Party, Durgadas Kamat, said: “Our party has exposed the rampant corruption in the art and culture department in the past too. We have exposed the substandard quality of the work of Kala Academy in the past. Now their leader is levelling serious charges against the minister, hence we demand that inquiry should happen not only in the grants distributed by Gaude but also in Kala Academy refurbishment work.”
Goa Congress leader Sunil Kawthankar termed the allegations as “very serious” and said: “It is unprecedented that the state assembly Speaker has to call a press conference during the session and has demanded an inquiry against the cabinet minister for misusing funds. We demand that the CM sack the minister concerned immediately and if he fails to do that, then Sawant should step down as it’s the moral defeat of this government.”
Minister Govind Gaude was yet to respond to News18 queries at the time of publishing this report.
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