Congress veteran Pratapsingh Rane contradicts party, wants Land Plan notified

PANAJI: Even as Congress is mulling a multi-prong strategy to "expose" the BJP-led Goa government, the Leader of Opposition Pratapsingh Rane today termed Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar as a "nice person" and asked him to go ahead with notifying the Land Use Plan.

"New chief minister has come and we have a lot of expectations from him. He is a very nice person. We have worked together in the past," Rane said while addressing a press conference called by him for immediate notification of Land Use Plan for the coastal state.

Rane's statement comes on a day when his party's state unit chief Luizinho Faleiro held a meeting with prominent leaders and spokespersons and asked them to design strategies to "expose" state government on various fronts.

Faleiro asked the spokespersons to "point out failures of the government through media."

When asked to pinpoint any instance of corruption in the Parsekar government, Rane said, "I don't want to say anything. I will talk only with a proof in hand. I will talk on the floor of the House."

The former chief minister, however, said Parsekar government should go ahead with the process of notifying the Plan, commonly known as Regional Plan.

"Almost all except 15 Panchayats have objection for the Regional Plan. The government should go ahead and notify the Plan in the panchayats where there is no objection," Rane said.

His statement is in stark contrast with that of Congress spokesman Yatish Naik who had said the Plan in its current form should not be notified.

However, Rane said he did not want the government to scrap the existing plan as a lot of efforts have been put into preparing it.

He also demanded inquiry into constructions that are coming up across the state in absence of the Plan.