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Goa parties leave language choice to Delhi

Sandesh Prabhudesai in Panjim

Major national parties here have asked their high commands take a decision on the language issue in Goa.

Former Union law minister Ramakant Khalap of the Congress has asked the high command not to issue a whip on two private members' bills, being moved to bring Marathi on par with Konkani, Goa's official language.

Khalap, along with three legislators, is supporting the bill, moved by his former party, the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party, which proposes to make Marathi official along with Konkani.

Another bill being moved by the Bharatiya Janata Party, a coalition partner of the Francisco Sardinha government, proposes equal status to Marathi while making a provision to grant all facilities enjoyed by Konkani.

Khalap had convened a special convention of pro-Marathi Congressmen on Sunday, but managed the support of only three out of 15 legislators. The others are against any change in the Official Language Act, passed in 1987 by the Congress regime.

His statement that all four legislators would not mind defying the whip, if issued, to vote against the bill, irked several party legislators and Pradesh Congress Committee members, compelling PCC chief Luizinho Faleiro to convene an emergency joint meeting of the Congress Legislature Party and PCC this morning.

"We have unanimously decided to issue a whip, to defeat the private members' bills to amend the act," Faleiro announced after the meeting. Khalap later said the decision was taken by a majority and that he and some others had opposed it.

"I will once again appeal to the high command to instruct the local unit not to issue a whip but allow us to vote as per our conscience," said Khalap. Voting against the amendment will amount to betrayal of the electorate, which supports the cause of Marathi, he felt.

The PCC-CLP decision came in the wake of an assurance from Faleiro at the recent state-level workers' meeting of the Konkan Projecho Avaz (Voice of Konkani People), which had led a 555-day agitation in 1987, to issue a whip against all amendments to the act.

Though Faleiro said the decision is being taken as per the party's policy on the language issue, Khalap recalled that the Congress had watered down its stand of allowing limited use of Marathi long back, by allowing it for all official purposes when passing the legislation in 1987.

"What the Congress meant while changing the original policy was to grant equal status to Marathi. I am not trying to achieve anything different," he said, but refused to support the BJP bill, which also proposes equal status to Marathi.

The proposal, moved by party leader Manohar Parrikar, is also being opposed by party workers at the grassroots level. They participated in a meeting organised by the Goa Hit Rakhan Manch, an organisation of youth fighting against any amendment to the act.

Activists from various areas are faxing letters to Union Home Minister L K Advani to intervene and instruct local leaders not to move the bill during the ongoing assembly session. They have also started gheraoing legislators, in a bid to exert pressure on them.

Sardinha has also decided not to support his coalition partners on the amendment, but to issue a whip to defeat it at the introduction stage itself. "He should either tell the BJP to withdraw it or resign as chief minister," demanded Faleiro, as Sardinha was also elected on a Congress ticket but later split away, to form a coalition with the BJP last November.

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