Addressing a press conference in Panaji, Congress spokesperson Trajano D'Mello said that while former Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar, an IITian, had managed to halt the mining industry in the state, now another IITian Kejriwal, promises to restart it.
D'Mello said: "Kejriwal is fooling people of Goa by making false promises. How can an anarchist be trusted to govern the state of Goa."
The Congress spokesperson's comments come a couple of days after Arvind Kejriwal, during his visit to Goa, had said that the electoral battle in Goa was between the Bharatiya Janata Party and his Aam Aadmi Party and that the Congress would be wiped out in the state assembly polls, scheduled to be held in early 2017.
D'Mello said: "He is going to solve the problem of iron ore mining in ten days. One IITian stopped the ore (business) and the other IITian will restart it. Are people of Goa fools?"
Mining in Goa was banned in 2012, first by the state BJP-led coalition government under then Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar, followed by Union Minister for Environment and Forests Jayanthi Natarajan who revoked environment clearances granted to all mining leases and eventually by the Supreme Court of India, which banned all mining activity, following the revelations of the Justice M.B. Shah Commission which exposed a Rs 35,000 crore mining scam in the state.
The ban was subsequently lifted and mining eventually resumed in 2015, but falling global prices turned out to be yet another deterrent for the mining companies from extracting and exporting ore, who preferred not to resume ore extraction on a full scale.
