PANJIM: As two former Congressmen-turned-BJP loyalists, earlier alleged to have been involved in power and health scams, are set to be inducted in the Manohar Parrikar cabinet on Wednesday, the BJP is being questioned about their motto on ‘zero tolerance to corruption’.
“Chief Minister has put mechanisms in place. He will take whatever care has to be taken, and whatever decisions the party and CM takes, will be in the interest of the party and the State,” Deputy Speaker Michael Lobo said responding to a media observation that the party’s motto was defeated with the entry of two allegedly tainted MLAs in the cabinet. “I don’t think anything wrong will happen,” Lobo added.
Vishwajit Rane and Mauvin Godinho will take oath as ministers on Wednesday. Rane, who had deserted the Congress for its failure to form the government despite it being the single largest party, joined the BJP on April 6. At the time of Rane’s entry into the BJP, Parrikar had stated that the new member will have to follow BJP principles on issues pertaining to the State and the people of Goa. “He (Rane) was in the Congess and was taking a particular path. In BJP, if that path is not correct, I will explain to him. When he joins here, he accepts BJP principles on that issue,” he had said.
Godinho’s alleged power scam, which was exposed by Parrikar himself, is currently pending before the Supreme Court. Ironically, when he joined the party last December ahead of the 2017 polls, Parrikar – then Defence Minister – has termed the ‘power subsidy scam’ as an ‘attempt to scam’.
“There was an attempt (to commit) scam, which I stopped and recovered Rs 63 crore to the State government treasury. Now the court will decided whether it was a scam or not,” Parrikar had said.
