Team Herald
CALANGUTE: Former Congress MLA Agnelo Fernandes on Monday alleged that some Congress leaders had already connived with Union Homer Minister Amit Shah to engineer defection of elected Congress MLAs to the BJP to form the BJP-led government once again in the State after the Assembly elections.
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Without taking anybody’s name, Fernandes charged that three leaders – a mining mafia, a formalin mafia, and a drug mafia – are out to sell Goa. It will be clear in political circles who he is referring to.
“Six months back I had said that a casino lobby had a meeting with (Michael) Lobo and two other leaders to finalise who will be the next Chief Minister and the other two as Deputy Chief Ministers. Congress leader P Chidambaram has realised their game plan and because of it, he might have kept the admission of Lobo into Congress on hold,” he said.
Fernandes further alleged that former minister Lobo has been sent by the BJP to the Congress because Lobo knows that he won’t win the seat on BJP symbol. “It is an open secret that some Congress leaders had met Home Minister Amit Shah and had planned to engineer the defection of two-third Congress MLAs into the BJP after the February 14 elections to form the BJP-led government. We have informed high command about this and we won’t let it happen”, he said.
According to Fernandes, “When AICC senior leader P Chidambaram was in Goa, GPCC president Girish Chodankar had told him and Anthony Menezes (Calangute Congress leader) that the party is all set to import Michael Lobo. But when asked, Chidambaram said that no minister will be imported without AICC permission and as such no permission has been given. But I don’t know why some criminally minded people from the Congress are in hurry to induct Lobo. Such Congress members should be stripped and paraded all over,” he said.
Alleging that the Congress wants to finish Catholic leadership in Goa, Fernandes said, “It is questionable why the party wants to finish Catholic leadership in the State. Today I don’t condone what former MLA Reginaldo Lourenco has done because he was sidelined in the party. The same thing was done to former Chief Minister Luizinho Faleiro where they were given posts but not powers resulting in them leaving the party. I am GPCC vice president but only on paper and I don’t know who is admitted and who is removed by the party. This is like ‘Chor company’ where decisions are taken which are detrimental to the party.”
“We are completely unaware of whom the party will be inducting and whom they will be sacking and if this is the state of affairs then what is the point of having GPCC and DPCC and leaders taking decisions which will affect the party”, Fernandes demanded to know.
“We are Congressmen. We have always remained loyal to the party. We will continue to be in the party as long as we are not kicked out,” he said.
