panaji unlike in the past it is now no longer a battle its warbasketball enthusiasts in the state should probably thank of all things the basketball federation of india bfi for inspiring them to take on the might of the defunct goa basketball association had bfi ceo roopam sharma not sent a curt email to the lusofonia games secretariat asking them to include gba president cf vaz and secretary shekhar jain in the organizing committee everyone would have left the dodgy gba officials alone at least till the end of the lusofonia games later this year calls for vaz and jains heads are routine stuff and so are the countless memorandums that get dropped at the offices of the chief minister sports minister sports authority of goa and sometimes even goa olympic association nobody bothers about how the sport has got killed here but when 80 protesters come on the streets waving placards and shouting slogans even a friendly government panics suddenly meetings are sought and there are even moves to derail the protest the call for unity had a ripple effect everyone came together some even forgetting their personal differences it also brought porvorim mla rohan khaunte to one of their press conferences although sadly by the time he arrived half of the media team had left to cover another assignment the press conference after all had commenced 35 minutes behind schedule last week the protesters even dared to walk into the office of the commissionerate of customs and central excise where slogans were shouted against jain a senior officer employed as superintendent of central excise in the next couple of days the commissionerate can brace for another onslaught as 71 basketball enthusiasts who met in the city on sunday decided not to take the foot of the accelerator we are going to protest again and if jain does not resign we will proceed with lodging an fir he has clearly violated sports ministry guidelines said one former player who attended the meeting according to assistant commissioner loretta shreedharan who met the protesters jain has been slapped with a show cause notice which he is yet to reply the key to basketballs fortunes and future like with most things in the state lie with chief minister manohar parrikar for more than a week the protesting group has been trying to secure an appointment with the chief minister but the bjp national executive meant parrikar was out of reach he will be available this week and the group will tell him in no uncertain terms that the time for action is now the plan is simple the chief minister will be asked to impress on the bfi to tell the gba to open membership then have elections and put the house in order it might take a maximum of two months to have a new committee in place said another exbasketball player who attended sundays meeting as simple as that