MARGAO: In a day filled with political drama, Congress leaders and MLAs rushed to meet at a hotel in Margao as the sinking party launched into fire-fighting mode, to prevent the speculated defection of the majority of its MLAs into BJP.
After the meeting Congress leaders held on Saturday evening in North Goa, a series of one-on-one meetings were held in South Goa on Sunday morning, which continued throughout the day, till Sunday evening. Most MLAs who attended these meetings, left the hotel soon after.
Dinesh Gundu Rao, the Goa-desk in charge of the Goa Pradesh Congress Committee (GPCC) arrived at the hotel in Margao on Sunday morning where he had one-on-one meetings with eight Congress MLAs. Various other Congress leaders like GPCC president Amit Patkar, vice president M K Shaikh, South Goa president Savio Silva and former GPCC president Girish Chodankar were present.
However, before all this, Rao had met Margao MLA Digambar Kamat, on Saturday night at his residence. Kamat, the former Leader of Opposition was at the centre of this storm as the Congress leadership kept trying to placate the former Chief Minister, who is still upset from being sidelined by the party after the poll results.
Coming back to Sunday morning, the first set of MLAs that met Rao in Margao were Quepem MLA Altone D’Costa, who owns the hotel, along with the Congress working president Yuri Alemao and others such as Mormugao MLA Sankalp Amonkar, St Cruz MLA Rudolf Fernandes and Nuvem MLA Aleixo Sequiera. Two MLAs from North Goa, Saligao MLA Kedar Naik and Cumbarjua MLA Rajesh Phaldesai travelled together to the hotel to meet Rao. Leader of Opposition, the Calangute MLA Michael Lobo and Aldona MLA Carlos Alvares Ferreira were the last of the lot to meet Rao.
Lobo was in a good mood before he entered the hotel, stating that no one from BJP had approached him, and this was just a regular meeting. However, he was in a bad mood later in the day, as he refused to speak to the media. Lobo and Amonkar left the hotel and following discussions with Patkar, the two headed in a vehicle to meet Kamat at his bungalow in Aquem.
Incidentally, when the media followed their vehicle to Kamat’s residence, they discovered that two more MLAs, Naik and Phaldesai, were also present at Kamat’s house. Soon after, Patkar and Shaikh too arrived at Kamat’s house. Sources stated that talks between Lobo, Amonkar, Patkar, Shaikh and Kamat remained inconclusive as all four returned to the hotel while Kamat too left his residence. Sources stated that Kamat had left directly to Panjim followed by Naik and Phaldesai.
Earlier, speaking to media persons outside the hotel, almost all MLAs downplayed the rumours of the split, which was speculated to take place on Sunday. MLA Carlos said with so many rumours there has to be smoke behind the fire and he indirectly appealed to the MLAs to “touch their mind and soul before making any decision”. He indicated that he was staying with the Congress and would not leave the party.
Later on Sunday evening, the entire Congress camp left the hotel. At this point, Lobo, Amonkar and Rudolf were the only MLAs at the hotel, while the others had left.
Before the team left, former GPCC president Girish Chodankar recalled that the MLAs had taken an oath before God at various religious places of worship not to defect and had signed affidavits too stating that they would not repeat the actions of the former Congress MLAs who had defected to BJP. He alleged that the mining lobby, coal mafia and industrialists were pressurising MLAs to join the BJP and were being offered between Rs 30 and 40 crore to leave Congress.
While Chodankar did not identify anyone from the Congress group who may be thinking of joining BJP, both Patkar and Lobo refused to speak to the media. Rudolf insisted that he had only come to Margao to get some feedback from party leaders on how to raise questions in the Assembly session that will commence on Monday.
