The Aam Aadmi Party in Goa on Thursday said that the organisers of the BRICS Summit should officially express regret for excluding a reference to Goa in the summit's logo, claiming that a reference to the host state in the logo has been a precedent in previous BRICS meets.
"This exception of Goa's exclusion from the BRICS logo is a lost opportunity of projecting Goa. We take strong note of this and would like to stress on the point that this exception should be regretted," AAP Goa spokesperson Rupesh Shinkre said in a statement issued here.
Shinkre also said that previously BRICS summits in Yekaterinburg (Russia) in 2009, Basilia (Brazil) in 2010, Sanya (China) in 2011, New Delhi (India) in 2012, Durban (South Africa) in 2013, Fortaleza (Brazil) in 2014 and Ufa (Russia) in 2015 had a reference to the host state in the logo.
"Goa is a tourist destination and it has a vibrant society, vivid history and heritage. Goa cannot be just a venue as it is a state in the federation of Indian Union," Shinkre said.
"It was also imperative on the Government of Goa who rants on bringing investments post BRICS to appraise this concern to the Central Government," he added.
On Wednesday, Congress MP Shantaram Naik had complained to the electoral authorities in poll-bound Goa, that the BRICS logo which depicts a lotus in bloom, was being used for political purposes by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, whose symbol incidentally is also the lotus.
--IANS
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