Tension in Sal with Dodamarg demanding to merge with Goa
samir umarye
BICHOLIM: Tension is brewing on the border areas of Sal in Bicholim and Dodamarg even as there is a section of youths from Dodamarg who have raised their demand to merge the taluka into Goa.
Today speaking to Herald several residents of Sal voiced their anger over the demand and agitation carried out by the people from the neighbouring state demanding that Dodamarg be merged with Goa.
“We strongly oppose the demand of Dodamarg being merged with Goa. When the opinion poll was held it was already decided that no area will be included or delected from the state. So this question was already solved.” Suresh Parab from Sal told.
The resident of this area have strongly opposed any move in this regard. “We want Goa as it is and it should not add any of the neighbouring talukas. Already we have so much of unemployment and if they are added to Goa what should our children do?” questioned Soma Raut.
They feel that people from Dodamarg want to join Goa just because of several facilities provided by the government. “It is very backward and Goa government cannot provide facilities to us and how is it going to satisfy Dodamarg which is a huge taluka?” questioned Soma.
“We don’t want any tension on this border area and government should think about this and end this issue” Mukund Raut told “Don’t make Sal into another Kashmir as we would surly oppose this idea.”
Meanwhile today a special meeting was held at Dodamarg to discuss this issue and more than thousand youths from the area were present for the same. They expressed that their MLA and government has not taken up any development and so they have raised this demand to merge with Goa.
“This meeting was convened with the sole demand that Dodamarg me merged with Goa. Dodamarg has always been ignored by the government whether in political front, employment or anyother front” Ramchandra Thakur told the reporters after the meeting.
“Maharastra government is totally ignoring us and thus this agitation has begun and till the time Dodamarg is not merged with Goa we would continue with this agitation.”Thakur stated adding “most of the people are in favour of this merger and today some people tried to crush this agitation but we would always stand with this demand till Maharastra government does not get awake” Thakur stated.
Another youth from Dodamarg Yaibhav Inamdar stated that all this is done so that Maharastra government should know about our presence. “This is obvious demand from most of the youths who are frustrated. We have decided to approach the leaders from Maharastra and if they cannot solve our problems atleast they should merge this taluka into Goa” Yaibhav stated.
Today this special meeting was held in a temple at Dodamarg but as there were two groups , one supporting the idea and another that of Shiv sena opposing the idea, there was great commotion which finally resulted in fight. The police finally had to interven in the matter and stop the meeting.
“We are opposed to this idea and we assure that the local MLA would come to this area soon and resolve all the issues.” the shivsena taluka chief, Bahurao Dhuri told.