Attacking the Sawant Govt over its proposed 50% bus fare concession for women, AAP Working President Valmiki Naik, women leader Suvarna Harmalkar and others said that the “proposal” is nothing but another jumla that is being prepared for the forthcoming assembly elections.
“BJP is fully aware that women in Goa are completely disgusted and disenchanted with the BJP and its multiple failures and deceit when it comes to their issues, so now Sawant is testing the waters for a new jumla to fool them yet again.” Naik began.
Stating that Sawant’s scheme appears to be designed to fail even before it has started, Naik called it another attempt by Sawant to copy yet another of Arvind Kejriwal’s popular schemes, but without the right intentions.
“We saw how Sawant announced Free Water scheme in Goa under pressure from AAP’s Veez Andolan five year ago. And we saw how he conveniently and abruptly stopped the scheme saying that all Goans are robbers. Today Goans are paying higher rate than what they were before the scheme. It is a guarantee that Sawant will stop the bus fare concession after election if he returns to power, and call all Goan women robbers or freeloaders”, Naik alleged.
Naik said BJP is anti-women, and the newly formed BJP Govt, has already started interfering in the Free Bus Travel for Women scheme by imposing conditions and increasing paperwork and reducing the number of women who can benefit.
“Before elections, they had promised to give all women Rs. 2,500 per month, but after coming to power they have taken a complete u-turn. This is a true face of the BJP when it comes to women.”, Naik charged.
Harmalkar said women in Goa are suffering from the same issues for the past many years, and they will not tolerate or trust the BJP anymore.
“Scheme payment delays, women’s safety, price rise, employment, healthcare and so many other pressing issues continue to be ignored by the Sawant Govt. To make things worse, he has only lied about schemes like free gas cylinders and free water. We will not fall for jumlas anymore”, Harmalkar said.
Harmalkar said Sawant cannot even copy a scheme properly. She questioned why the concession is only 50% and not full 100% like Kejriwal did in Delhi and Punjab. She also demanded that the scheme to be extended to all women and not just those with private jobs, alleging that such a condition would create a circus of paperwork and applications that would discourage women from even applying for the scheme.
“Most importantly, the biggest hurdle for women bus commuters, in addition to cost, is also safety. Only women know what they face when they travel on buses. Will Sawant care to copy the Bus Marshall, Bus CCTV and Panic button initiatives of Kejriwal as well? Or is this only a financial carrot to be dangled to fool women for their votes”, Harmalkar asked.
Harmalkar stated that Kejriwal has always done what he promised, and usually more than what he promised.
“We see Kejriwal as our brother. He did so much, such as giving good education to our children, providing best free healthcare for us, starting free bus travel, ensuring affordable electricty and water, promising Rs. 2,100 for women etc.”, Harmalkar said.
But she said Sawant has behaved the exactly opposite, by lying about free gas cylinders, stopping the free water schemes and calling us robbers, closing down Govt schools, and making everything unaffordable and impossible for women to run the home.
“We welcome it if CM Sawant wants to copy Arvind Kejriwal’s governance model, but “nakkal karpak suddha akkal jai aasta”. And I don’t mean just intelligence, but also intention. The intention of this scheme is only to fool women for votes, and I predict that just like Arvind Kejriwal started this scheme in 2019 on the day of Bhau Beej as a gift to sisters. I predict that Sawant will also try to announce this scheme on bhau beej this year” Harmalkar mocked.