Complaint against Pramod Sawant before Patna court over 'migrant labourers' indulgence in crime' remark

Patna: A complaint was lodged against Goa Chief Minister Pramod Sawant before a court in Patna on Wednesday in connection with his remark that "90 per cent of the crimes in the coastal state were committed by migrant labourers from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar".

The petition was filed before the court of Chief Judicial Magistrate, Patna, by Manish Kumar Singh, a local leader of the ruling JD(U).

Singh has taken exception to Sawant's remark, made during a speech in Goa on Labour Day, when the CM had blamed people of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh for "90 per cent of crimes" in the coastal state.

Singh has sought an apology from Sawant for insulting "the state that gave the country its first President and happens to be the place of birth of the last Sikh Guru".

The petition is likely to be taken up for hearing in due course.

"About 90 per cent of the crimes in Goa are committed by migrant labourers from Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and other areas," Sawant had said.

He had said that every migrant labourer working in Goa should have a labour card given by the state government.

The Goa government issues labour cards to those working in the private, unorganised and industrial sectors to keep a record of employment as well as extend welfare measures to them.

Sawant said it was necessary to track the details of labourers as "after committing a crime in Goa, migrant labourers often return to their state and it becomes difficult to locate them".

Meanwhile, Umesh Singh Kushwaha, the JD(U)'s Bihar unit president, in a statement, alleged that the BJP, to which Sawant belongs, has been "always disrespectful towards the Hindi-speaking people" and claimed that the Narendra Modi government at the Centre will be punished in next year's Lok Sabha polls for its "silence" over the issue.

Statements lambasting the Goa CM have also been issued by the RJD, the Congress and the CPI(M), all constituents of the ruling 'Mahagathbandhan' or Grand Alliance in Bihar.

State BJP spokesperson Nikhil Anand responded by squarely blaming Nitish Kumar and RJD president Lalu Prasad and the Mahagathbandhan government for "Bihar's image problem".