Team Herald
DABOLIM: It is no longer a secret that Mauvin Godinho is, by all accounts a BJP MLA in Congress clothing. But even the fake political threads he wears are being worn off, as Godinho functions as a full- fledged BJP member, humiliating, defying, ridiculing and accusing his party. But the Congress refusal to even touch him with a barge pole, on the pretext that he will be made a martyr, has boomeranged and embarrassed the Congress. As a Congress MLA, his birthday celebrations at Chicalim were used to jumpstart this political career with the BJP. In the process, he revealed that even while campaigning for the Congress in 2012, he said his own party members were involved in scandals and would lose.
With the Assembly elections just six months away and with Mauvin Godinho, effectively campaigning for the BJP, the Congress has no way of explaining the benefits of retaining Godinho in the party, he has clearly left and announced that he will be contesting the next elections on a BJP ticket.
In his half hour long address in the presence of D’Souza, besides other BJP Dabolim Block committee members and over 5000-odd people, Godinho brought down the party on whose ticket he was elected, one by one. Here are some of his salvos, “While I was doing campaigning for Congress in the last Assembly polls, I had clearly said that the Congress leaders have been making tall claims on winning elections but their misdeeds and scandals would reflect on their performance and the same was seen with the Assembly results as Congress was reduced to nine seats. The reason of Congress defeat was their own misdeeds done by the leaders who are today are sitting at home,” he said.
His next blow was this when he said, “Though I don’t want to name any leader or party, but everyone in Goa knows that mining operations was shut due to mining scandals done by Congress leaders.”
Next came the turn to praise his real leaders of the BJP. “On the developmental front all projects which were launched by me during my 50th birthday as Cortalim MLA was stalled (by the Congress). However without any discrimination of ruling or opposition, the projects which were proposed by me as Daboilim MLA have become a reality one by one,” he said.
Finally, after refusing to join his Congress colleagues to back the no- confidence motion against the BJP government, he pitched for his candidature from Dabolim Assembly seat for the 2017 Assembly polls on a BJP ticket in a way no BJP MLA has. “It is the BJP that can only do development. If people can give 17-odd years to other party governments in past then why will people would have any doubts in giving another five years term to BJP?”
All that the GPCC spokesperson Urfan Mulla had to offer by way of explanation, for the silence on Godinho was that the party has taken a decision to expel him. “The Congress Party had already made up its mind to expel Godinho but we purposely kept the decision on hold. I feel that he should be expelled soon for his anti-party activities as the process to expel him from party is in the final stage,” he added. “Actually we are not at all surprised that Godinho has been speaking against the Congress. We are fully aware that he is BJP’s agent in Congress. Godinho was involved in electricity scam and thus to save himself, he got himself tied up with BJP and saved himself using BJP,” he said.
This begs the question. If the Congress was “aware” why is it allowing Godinho, who is more than a BJP agent, to have free run of bringing down his party?
