Bharatiya Janata Party’s National President Amit Shah landed in a controversy shortly after his arrival in Goa for the weekend after the saffron party’s local unit organised a public meeting addressed by him in the high security area of the state’s Dabolim airport. The airport is located in a naval airbase and is under the control of the Indian Navy.
On Sunday, activist Aires Rodrigues filed a complaint addressed to the secretary of Ministry of Civil Aviation, chief secretary of Goa and the director general of police, calling the meeting illegal. He sought the registration of a First Information Report against the organisers of the meeting, held on Saturday morning. The meeting was attended by Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar, Minister of State for Ministry of AYUSH, Sripad Naik, South Goa MP Narendra Savaikar and BJP state chief Vinay Tendulkar and other ministers.
“If cognisance is not taken of my complaint and an FIR is not lodged then I shall approach the court of law,” Rodrigues told Scroll.in. He said the meeting was held in violation of the law and airport regulations. He said it flouted Section 141 of the Indian Penal Code (unlawful assembly).
In his complaint, Rodrigues said that a carpeted podium, a dozen chairs for dignitaries and a sound system were set up at the entrance to the airport for Shah to address a meeting upon his arrival. Lots of people were brought to the airport in buses for the meeting, he said. The complaint said: “It’s probably for the first time ever in the history of our country, a public meeting was organised in the high security precincts of an airport,” the complaint said, adding that passengers were inconvenienced and this amounted to a complete and gross abuse of power.
Congress attack
“It was a total display of sychophancy with police officials looking the other way while the law was being blatantly breached,” Rodrigues said.
Controversy over the meeting began on Saturday itself, with the Congress demanding an inquiry into it and seeking penalisation of all airport authority officials who allowed the meeting along with “all the ministers and MLAs including BJP national President Amit Shah for conducting the illegal public meeting inside the airport”, All Indian Congress Committee Geneneral Secretary Girish Chodankar said in a press statement. “It is a total and complete abuse of power by the power-intoxicated BJP, that has lost all sense of good governance”
Congress’ Rajya Sabha MP Shantaram Naik, in a statement from New Delhi, urged the Civil Aviation Minister to file an FIR on the meeting. “Since the land occupied by the Airport Authority of India and is operated by the ministry of Defence, Defence Minister Arun Jaitley should invoke the Defence of India Act, apart from the provisions of the Indian Penal Code and file another FIR,” Naik reportedly said.
During his two-day visit to Goa, Shah he held a series of meetings and met the BJP’s elected representatives in the Assembly, zilla parishad and village panchayats. He also interacted with industrialists and businessmen in the state. On Sunday, he visited a garbage plant, inaugurated new offices for the BJP in South Goa and met the party’s coalition partners.