RACHANA Holds Talk on ‘Present political scenario and our responsibility’
Mangaluru: RACHANA Catholic Chamber of Commerce and Industry, organized a talk on the “Present political scenario and our responsibility”, at Valencia Church Hall here on March 18.
The programme began with an invocation. President of RACHANA Stany Alvares welcomed the gathering.
Entrepreneur and former President of Konkani Sahitya Academy Roy Castelino was the resource person.
Addressing the gathering Roy Castelino said, “Today’s topic is the “Present political scenario and our responsibility”. Yes, the elections are nearing and this year will be the season of elections. In May we have the Assembly elections, then comes the City Corporation elections, followed by the Teachers Constituency and Graduate Constituency elections. As the elections are nearing we all should understand our responsibilities. We all know that we want a leader who will work with integrity and transparency. We also know what the then government did to the Catholic community in 2008. As soon as the BJP come to power they had planned to attack 100 prayer houses by September 14 and had thought of celebrating the Samajyotsava on September 16. They attacked our churches on September 14 and because we protested and the situation turned worse they had to cancel the Samajyotsava”.
Roy Castelino further said, “In the elections held in 2013, J R Lobo won from the Mangaluru South Constituency. This time we need to work hard at the grassroots level and every voter should cast their valuable vote. Being the MLA, J R Lobo has done very good development work, the roads, drainage system, we have a beautiful musical fountain, children’s toy train, 3D Planetarium the first of its kind in Asia and houses for the poor families. There is no doubt that under Lobo’s leadership a number of development projects are completed. In spite of all this good work being done under MLA J R Lobo, we should not sit quiet, we need to be more aggressive and work for the success in this election. We need to elect our representative who can fight for our rights and provide us justice. This time we should cast our votes 100% and elect an able leader.”
When asked about the manipulation of Electronic Voting Machines, MLA J R Lobo said, “I have worked as an election officer for 35 years. When the UPA government was in power we used the EVM’s for polling. If we have doubt on the EVMs all the national parties should strongly oppose. It is the credibility of the election commission and if the National parties strongly oppose the EVM’s they should write to the Election Commission”.
When asked why the booklet of the development of Mangaluru South Constituency has not released, Lobo said, “We have very short memory, if we print the booklet 6 months before the elections, people will forget. The booklets are in the process of printing and soon we will distribute the booklets to the people of Mangaluru South Constituency.”
RACHANA Secretary Anil Vas delivered the vote of thanks. Treasurer Felix J Pinto compered the programme.