PANJIM: As political battle within ruling party heats up over denial of tickets, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Goa election in-charge Devendra Fadnavis said that “anti-incumbency wave” forced some of their leaders to switch their political loyalty.
Former BJP Minister Michael Lobo along with his wife Delilah switched their loyalties to Congress on Monday. Before that three other MLAs–Carlos Almeida, Alina Saldanha and Pravin Zantye had resigned from the party to join Congress, AAP and MGP, respectively.
“Except one or two, those who have left us were aware that party will deny ticket as there is anti-incumbency wave against them, as per our internal survey,” said Fadnavis.
He claimed that Lobo’s decision was motivated by “selfish reasons”. He asserted that Lobo quit the party as BJP was not ready to give a poll ticket to his wife, which Congress must have assured to give.
Responding to question of induction of new people, Fadnavis said “we are inducting people with winnability factor”.
“We are inducting new people taking into account their winnability factor, which will help us to win by complete majority the upcoming elections,” he said.
