Panaji,  The Congress in Goa demanded setting up a committee under a sitting High Court judge to investigate how assembly records from 1963 to 2000 got destroyed.

Amarnath Panjikar, Congress Media Cell Chairperson, on Wednesday addressed a press conference here and said that the speaker of Goa assembly should lodge a police complaint in this regard.

"We demand the Chief Minister immediately conduct an inquiry of the matter by the sitting Judge of the High Court and investigate the serious lapse on part of the Government for the loss of the important documents. Government cannot turn a blind eye on this blunder and must dare to fix responsibility," Panjikar said.

Goa Chief Minister Pramod Sawant on Monday had said that assembly records of post liberation had got destroyed, while shifting the old secretariat from age-old Adil Shah Palace in Panaji to new assembly complex at Porvorim in 2000.

"When I became the speaker of Goa assembly, I came to know that these records were destroyed. I wanted to preserve them. But they were destroyed. I am sorry, this should not happen. Now since 2000, we are preserving and digitisation of the same is done," Sawant had said.

Panjikar said that the BJP government in the country is all out to manipulate history and destroy records of historic importance to create an impression that everything happened in the country only after 2014.

"They started with the 'Parivartan' agenda in 2012 and eventually transformed it into 'Modification'. It is shocking that the most irresponsible Chief Minister Pramod Sawant revealed it almost after five years, since he became the Speaker of Goa Legislative Assembly, that the important records of the speeches of tallest leader of the Bahujan Samaj and first Chief Minister of Goa Late Dayanand a.k.a Bahusaheb Bandodkar and other senior leaders are lost," Panjikar said.

"Goa Assembly Speaker Ramesh Tawadkar must file an FIR immediately to investigate the lost records as claimed by the Chief Minister and should make the Chief Minister one of the accused," Congress spokesperson Adv. Shrinivas Khalap said.