Goa flood relief scam threatens Congress-NCP relations

PANAJI - The alleged siphoning of around Rs.85 lakh collected as flood relief fund from the public by the Youth Congress last year has strained relations between the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), both of which are coalition partners in the state government.

In a war of words between the two parties, NCP’s chief spokesperson Trajano D’Mello has lashed out at Youth Congress president Sankalp Amonkar of siphoning off Rs.85 lakh and has also called Chief Minister Digambar Kamat the “father of corruption”.

The Youth Congress president retaliated by calling the NCP state president Jose Phillip D’Souza a “corrupt person” and saying that “NCP’s foundation was based on corruption”.

At the root of this slug fest is D’Mello’s allegation that Amonkar siphoned of Rs.85 lakh from the relief fund, which was collected by the Youth Congress after an unprecedented flood ravaged Canacona, Goa’s southernmost tehsil in October 2009.

D’Mello’s allegations have rattled the Congress, which has been unable to convincingly explain how much money was collected for flood relief work or how much was spent.

Congress vice president N. Shivdas told IANS that only Rs.10 lakh were collected by the Youth Congress, but said that only Rs.20,000 were spent on relief work in Canacona.

Eleven months have passed after the October 2009 tragedy which left several hundreds of people homeless.

“We have not yet identified who are the needy persons. Once that is done we will distribute the money collected,” Shivdas said, refusing to divulge details of the bank account in which the flood relief money was deposited.

State NCP president Jose Phillip D’Souza has claimed the Youth Congress has swindled the money.

“They did not even provide proper receipts in return for the money collected. We will not take this lightly. We will file a criminal complaint to probe the flood relief scam,” D’Souza said.

D’Mello went a step further. He called Chief Minister Digambar Kamat “the father of corruption”.

Amonkar, on the other hand, has said the flood relief money was safe in the Youth Congress’ kitty. “There is no question of a scam,” he said.

“They should have made a bigger allegation. What is 75 lakh rupees? They should have made allegation of at least one crore, considering that they are talking about the Congress,” he said.

The Congress and the NCP have been uneasy spouses in the state coalition government, which also comprises of a regional outfit, Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP).

The three NCP legislators along with four other legislators branded themselves as the “G-7″ or “Group of 7″ and had threatened to topple the government in March this year, claiming they were unsatisfied with Kamat’s leadership.

Goa’s 40-member legislative assembly has 20 members from the Congress, 14 from the BJP, three from the NCP, two from the United Goans Democratic Party (UGDP) and one independent legislator.

– Indo Asian News Service