Efforts on to destroy Goa s communal harmony: Parrikar

Panaji Aug 25 (IANS) Less than a week after the Goa Church warned of a Nazi Germany like scenario in contemporary Goa and India Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar on Friday said that efforts were on to "destroy" the coastal state s communal harmony.

"So that inspite of a lot of efforts to destroy it (communal harmony) by some people by trying to divide the society on communal lines I think people know very well " Parrikar told reporters here.

Parrikar also told reporters at his ancestral home in Parra village 20 km north of Panaji that Ganesh Chaturthi was a festival for people of all religions in Goa and recalled fondly how he used to visit Catholic homes in the neighbourhood on Christmas Day.

"In Goa Ganesh Chaturthi is a festival of everyone Hindu Catholic Muslim. Christmas is festival of everyone. It is also enjoyed. For example in this house when I grew up we had a Catholic family here we have a Catholic family there. I used to go and enjoy Christmas at their place " Parrikar said.

"I wish that people enjoy the next year as a prosperous year peaceful year as a year of peace and love. That is the symbol of Ganesh Chaturthi " he added.

Last week an article in a periodical published by the influential Roman Catholic Church had drawn a parallel between conditions in Nazi Germany and contemporary India while subtly asking voters of Panaji assembly constituency not to vote for Parrikar who was contesting the August 23 by-poll.

"In 2012 everyone thought in terms of having a corruption free Goa. This thinking continues till 2014 but from then and increasingly everyday what we are witnessing in India is nothing but a constitutional holocaust. Corruption is very bad communalism is worse but Nazism is worse than both " the article said.

"Anybody who has read William Shirer s The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich or Allan Bullocks A Study of Tyranny or Hitler s own Mein Kampf will find an extraordinary identity between the growth and rampage of Nazism in Germany in 1933 onwards and India in 2014 " it said.

Around 26 per cent of the state s 1.5 million people are Catholic for whom the Church is a spiritual and religious guide.

The festival of Ganesh Chaturthi one of the biggest Hindu festivals in the state got underway on Friday.

--IANS
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