Panaji: A video showing a tourist urinating from a bus on a popular road was the trigger that made Goa’s agriculture minister Vijai Sardesai term all domestic tourists “scum of the earth”, he said on Saturday.
Sardesai, who stirred a row with his remark, claimed he had been quoted out of context but remained unapologetic and said that his comment still applied to a “certain section” of tourists, not all of them.
Sardesai had also stoked controversy by denigrating the credentials of tourists visiting Goa and accusing north Indians of trying to convert Goa into another Haryana. His comments had led to a war of words on social media websites, with most terming the statement derogatory.
In a fresh video released to the media on Saturday, he said that the people of Goa are disgusted with a few tourists, who come and use Goa as a dumping ground and create nuisance.
“There are several instances, one of which is a video which has gone viral of a tourist urinating from the bus on one of Goa's most popular and well done roads from Miramar to Dona Paula. So what I am speaking for, I am speaking for Goa," Sardesai said.
He added that a small section of the 6.5 million tourists who come to Goa have created the biggest nuisance. “These people have no civic sense. They are the ones creating the maximum garbage and maximum nuisance in Goa. So there is a general feeling among the people of Goa, that we need to re-orient our tourism to what it was before," he said.
Goa, a beach and nightlife tourism destination, attracts more than six million tourists every year as against its population of nearly 1.6 million.
The minister had on Friday said it was difficult for a state that was "superior" to the rest of India vis-a-vis most social indices to control "irresponsible tourists" coming from other states.
"Today, we receive tourists who are almost six times the state's population. Those tourists are not the top-end tourists. They are also the scum of the earth," Sardesai had said.
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