Social activists and political parties have taken strong objection to a public meeting by the Goa unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the Dabolim airport premises following the arrival of party president Amit Shah on Saturday.
A formal complaint was on Sunday filed by social activist Advocate Aires Rodrigues against the public meeting addressed by Mr. Shah.
Simultaneously, Congress Rajya Sabha MP Shantaram Naik has, in a statement issued on Sunday, objected to the said meeting and has sought action from the Election Commission for alleged misuse of party symbol by BJP.
In the complaint jointly addressed to the Secretary of Ministry of Civil Aviation, Chief Secretary of Goa, and the Director General of Police, Mr. Rodrigues has sought that an FIR be registered against the organisers of the “illegal public meeting”, as well as against Mr. Shah and other dignitaries present at the meeting, as they could not claim to be ignorant of the legal provisions. This, the complaint said was probably the first ever public meeting organised in the high security precincts of an airport.
Pointing out that the Goa civilian airport functions within the naval air base and is a defence establishment, Mr. Rodrigues said a carpeted podium, chairs for the dignitaries and a sound system was all set up at the entrance of the Dabolim airport terminal where Amit Shah arrived at 11.15 a.m. and addressed the public meeting with the airport and police officials conveniently looking the other way.
The complainant has objected to the presence of Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar, Union Minister Sripad Naik, Goa BJP Chief Vinay Tendulkar, Ministers and MLAs besides hundreds of people at the Airport.
He has called for an immediate inquiry to ascertain which officers were responsible in allowing this illegal public meeting and that stringent action in accordance with law be taken against the erring officers for having acted as cronies of a political party, in rank dereliction of their duty.
Mr Naik, on the other hand, has urged the Civil Aviation Minister to file an FIR against Mr. Shah and the Chief Minister for criminal tresspass, mischief and breach of trust under Indian Penal Code.
On Saturday evening AICC Secretary Girish chodankar had also condemned the holding of the meeting and demanded action against all involved in it. Repeated attempts to get BJP to respond to the issue remained unsuccessful.
