PANAJI (TIP):

In potentially controversial remarks, Goa chief minister Manohar Parrikar on Thursday said girls would “disappear” if they walk on the roads in Uttar Pradesh in the evening and invoked the legendary Bhagat Singh to justify foreign study trips by his cabinet colleagues. “Any girl can walk without fear on Goa streets even at midnight. But in Uttar Pradesh, if a girl walks at 6 in the evening, she will disappear,” he said in the assembly while seeking to address worries expressed by the ppposition on the law and order situation in the BJP-ruled coastal state.

He claimed some states with interest in tourism were busy spoiling the name of Goa which attracts millions of holiday-makers, both domestic and international, every year. Parrikar also alleged “a big news channel” has vested interest in “defaming” Goa. “There is a big news channel which has vested interest in defaming Goa. They act as if they have the right over Goa. I have stopped watching the channel, let them carry what they want”, he said. A beach in Goa visited by thousands of tourists every year Parrikar cited the life of revolutionary patriot Bhagat Singh to argue that there were two ways of looking at things.

His remark was in context of some ministers going abroad to study garbage disposal systems. “It was not a junket, it was a preoperative expense. If I had not sent them, I would have been accused of constructing (waste treatment) plants without studying them,” he said. “There are two ways of looking at anything. We look at Bhagat Singh as a martyr but Britishers used to look at him at as a terrorist. We need proper prospective to look at everything,” Parrikar added.