Goa government insensitive, like those headed by Bolsonaro, Trump, Johnson: Former Deputy CM

An angry opposition MLA and former Deputy Chief Minister Vijai Sardesai on Monday described CM Pramod Sawant's BJP-led coalition regime in Goa to those led by Jair Bolsnaro, Donald Trump and Boris Johnson of Brazil, US and UK respectively, accusing it of having failed to rein in the COVID-19 menace in Goa and putting the people of the state to risk.

After meeting Sawant, at an all-party conference held at the official residence of the Chief Minister in Panaji, Sardesai, who heads the Goa Forward party also said, that in the quest for attaining "herd immunity", the state government was in the process of putting its people at risk.

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"This government is a cowboy government. It is a rightist government like the ones run by Bolsonaro in Brazil, Trump in US and Boris Johnson in the UK. They do not care about the people," Sardesai told reporters on Monday, a day which saw the state's tally of active COVID-19 cases rise to 263.

Goa which was a COVID-19 free zone for more than a month has seen a sharp spike in the number of cases, many of them emerging from the Mangor hill area of South Goa's Vasco town, which has now been declared as a containment zone.

Despite requests and demands made by the Opposition as well as ruling MLAs Chief Minister Pramod Sawant has refused to order a lockdown in Vasco town, insisting that the infection had not spread out of the Mangor hill cluster.

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Nearly 15 health workers who were posted to the containment zone have also tested positive for COVID-19, even as, according to health department officials 95 percent of the patients who have tested positive in Goa are asymptomatic and most of them in the age group of 20-40 years.

Sardesai however said, that at the all-party meeting, Opposition MLAs were informed about the Goa government's intention to let herd immunity take its course in the state, to which the Opposition MLAs took issue with.

"It is a dangerous scenario. By looking for herd immunity the state government is putting people at risk, because to develop herd immunity 70 per cent of the state's population has to be either infected to or injected with a vaccine. The latter cannot happen as there is no cure," Sardesai said.

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Leader of Opposition Digambar Kamat also said that the opposition had placed three key demands before the government to be incorporated into a new SOP being evolved by the Sawant-led administration.

"Goans entering Goa should be offered free testing and quarantine. Swab-testing should remain mandatory for all persons entering Goa and a financial package should be offered to people from vulnerable sections of society," Kamat told Deccan Herald.