Goa Govt yet to consider ordering CBI probe into land deals: Cong

Panaji, Aug 1 (UNI) Goa Pradesh Congress Committee (GPCC) general secretary Vishnu Wagh today said the government is yet to consider the demand of UGDP legislator Atanasio (Babush) Monserrate for ordering a CBI probe into the alleged land conversion deals worth ''multi-crore rupees'' under the scrapped controversial Regional Plan-2011.

''We will take the decision at the appropriate time, even as Chief Minister Digambar Kamat had already announced scrapping of the plan with retrospective effect on popular demand,'' Mr Wagh told mediapersons at the party headquarters here today.

Earlier, former Town and Country Planning Minister Monserrate had alleged that the ministers from top to bottom in the erstwhile government, headed by Pratapsinh Rane, had been benefitted to the tune of hundreds of crores of rupees in the land conversion deals, while he was made the scapegoat without his fault.

He came under fire because he quit the Congress and contested the elections on a UGDP ticket, besides joining the nascent Goa Democratic Alliance (GDA), to form the government. Till now, all had kept quiet without launching a probe into the transactions to unearth the truth, Mr Monserrate said.

Justifying the manner in which the assembly Speaker Pratapsinh Rane conducted the House on Monday, where the Chief Minister had to prove his majority, Mr Wagh said there was no substance in the allegation of the GDA that the Speaker had ''butchered democracy''.

He alleged that on the contrary, it was the BJP-led anti-Congress coalition that had made an abortive attempt to destabilise the progressive government headed by Mr Kamat.

UNI