Goa CM can't handle Parrikar-Gadkari pressure says Rajya Sabha MP Shantaram Naik

PANAJI: Defence minister Manohar Parrikar’s insistence for Naval presence at the proposed Mopa civilian airport and union minister Nitin Gadkari’s proposal to utilize 200 acres of prime land at Betul for a satellite port has provided the Congress ammunition to challenge Goa chief minister Laxmikant Parsekar.
Congress Rajya Sabha MP Shantaram Naik on Saturday said that Parsekar was too weak to handle the pressure being put by the Gadkari-Parrikar combine.“Parsekar is just a namesake CM. Everytime Parrikar comes to Goa, he calls the CM and gets files cleared,” Naik said.
The proposed greenfield airport at Mopa in North Goa would have a separate Naval enclave for which five acres of land would be earmarked, Parrikar had said. Naik argued that the whole premise of establishing a new airport at Mopa was because the Navy would not allow civil aviation authorities full control over the existing airport at Dabolim.
Naik also questioned the need to nationalize all the rivers in Goa. “The state government will have no control over the rivers once they are nationalized. You don’t need to nationalize rivers if you want to use them for transportation,” the MP said.