Goa Forward Party president and Fatorda MLA Vijai Sardesai has refused to attend or accept felicitation at the Goa legislative assembly complex’s silver jubilee celebrations, questioning the event’s timing and the proposed expenditure of Rs 5 crore.
The celebrations are scheduled from October 6 to 9. In a letter to Assembly Speaker Ganesh Gaonkar, Sardesai described the programme as a “display of arrogance” and accused the government of “rewriting the history” of the complex. His objections centre on whether the anniversary is being marked in the correct year and whether public money is being spent transparently.
According to Sardesai, the Assembly building was inaugurated by then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee on March 5, 2000, while the first session in the complex began later that month. On that basis, he said the building completed 25 years in March 2025 and is now in its 27th year, making the current silver jubilee celebrations “artificial”.
Sardesai has sought public disclosure of the administrative sanction for the event, the estimates, details of the tender process, the successful bid and all payments made. He has also demanded independent scrutiny of what he described as any “inflated expenditure or siphoning of public money”. The report does not include a response from the Assembly Speaker or the Goa government to these demands.
The MLA linked his opposition to wider concerns about unemployment, agrarian distress, rising debt and infrastructure failures in Goa. He termed the expenditure and celebrations an example of “callous governance”, while also alleging that the current government’s term had seen curtailed Assembly sessions, opposition voices being suppressed and bills being passed with inadequate debate.
Sardesai further criticised the framing of the Assembly complex as a structure to be decorated and celebrated. “The assembly is not a monument to be decorated and celebrated,” he wrote in his letter. His demands now place the event’s spending records and procurement process at the centre of the dispute, with disclosure of the requested documents remaining the next stated step.
