Mr Naik further said that with the Delhi government declaring holidays from October 3 till October 14, in view of the Commonwealth Games being held there, many people from the region has made bookings for hotel rooms in the state. He also said that this was for the first time in over five years that many hotels have been overbooked.

Mr Ernest Dias, vice president of SITA, informed that the tickets for the first two charters scheduled to arrive from Russia, beginning October 7, have been sold out, adding that a record number of tourists were expected to arrive this year from Russia. He also said that two regions from Russia that were not covered in the past have also been “hooked” and many tourists from there would be visiting the state for the first time.

He, however, lamented that visa issue still remained as an irritant for the growth of tourism and said that if we have to compete with the neighbouring countries, like Thailand, Sri Lanka, who were competing with Goa then the government should grant visas on arrival to the tourists.

Mr Dias also said that while the central government has decided to grant visa on arrival to tourists from Finland but that facility was available at the airports in four metro cities and not at the Dabolim airport where the charters from Finland land.

He further said that in some Scandinavian countries like Sweden, Denmark the issue of visa took as many as 21 days, which was too long a time and was affecting the flow of tourists to the country and the state. Among the other issues that the government needed to address were the cleanliness of beaches and parking at the airport, he added.

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Addressing a press conference on Tuesday afternoon, Mr Rane said that the development done by him over the past three years besides job opportunities created with active support from the Chief Minister, Mr Digambar Kamat, will ensure that he got huge chunk of the votes while his opponent from BJP will lose his security deposit.

Stating that he might not have been able to achieve 100 per cent of what he had planned for his constituency, the Congress nominee for the by polls said that he has done much more than others ever achieved and that Valpoi would be a model constituency once all the on-going works were completed, most probably in the next few months.

Hitting out at the BJP for trying to rake up non-existent issues, he said that the opposition party has failed to carry out development in the constituencies where it was in power and that it was he who ensured that backward areas were brought on development path. He said that the Sattari taluka has developed because his father earlier nursed it well and now he was also doing the same.

Mr Rane said that the opposition party only tried to derive advantage from voters by promising the youth unemployment allowance, which was released to some beneficiaries only once and then withdrawn, and on the other hand he ensured that many competent youth from Valpoi and other areas got the jobs on merit by creating job opportunities.

He said that he has undertaken or got works worth sanctioned in Valpoi constituency as the representative of that constituency even as he said that he would ensure piped water to entire constituency once all the proposed works that have been sanctioned were completed in a year or so but surely before the next general elections to the assembly.

On the issue of his joining the Congress, he said that he was invited by the Congress president, Ms Sonia Gandhi, to join the party and he without giving a second thought grabbed the opportunity and quit his seat in assembly to join the party with which his father has been associated for over three decades. He said that henceforth he would remain with Congress, even if he was denied a ticket in the next election.

On his criticism by Mr Laxmikant Parsekar, the state BJP president, Mr Rane said that rather than trying to find faults with him in Valpoi, the BJP president should try to develop his constituency, even as he said that he would pay attention to Mandrem after the by-elections.

Stating that he would go with the people on the issue of permitting mining in his constituency of Valpoi, he went on to add that mining was a major economic contributor and that it would not be wished away just because it would add to environmental issues. He, however, said that he would inform the people about the hazards of mining particularly in Paikul area where the mining activity proposed to be started was nearer to a proposed water treatment plant.

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