PANJIM: In a major embarrassment and setback to the Congress, 10 of its MLAs in the Goa Assembly, including the leader of opposition Chandrakant (Babu) Kavalekar, broke away from the parent party and merged their group with the BJP.
In the late evening drama, 10 Congress MLAs – Kavalekar, Atanasio (Babush) Monserrate, Jennifer Monserrate, Nilkant Halarnkar, Tony Fernandes, Francis Silveira, Wilfred De Sa, Filipe Neri Rodgrigues, Clafasio Dias and Isidore Fernandes joined BJP
Five Congress MLAs – former chief ministers Pratapsingh Rane, Luizinho Faleiro, Ravi Naik and Digambar Kamat and Curtorim MLA Aleixo Reginaldo Lourenco – have remained loyal to the party.
Chief Minister Dr Pramod Sawant speaking to the media alongwith the new BJP MLAs said that the merger with the BJP was made to strengthen the government in the State.
“Two-thirds of the Congress legislative wing of Goa has merged into the Bharatiya Janata Party and therefore the BJP strength in the Assembly has gone up from 17 to 27. BJP has become the single largest party and 9 MLAs alongwith Babu (Kavalekar) have joined the BJP,” he stated.
Responding to a question on what triggered the merger, he said, “This has been done to strengthen the BJP government in the State and to provide a firm government of Goenkarponn to the Goans.”
Stating that the decision was taken by the BJP high command he said, “During the last three months of governance I realised that a lot of people have been facing difficulties. Therefore as per the decision taken by the party high command we executed the merger.”
The leader of the splinter group, Kavalekar said, “We have merged into the BJP only with the objective to work under Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Dr Pramod Sawant. For last several years we have been in opposition and still to remain in opposition and not allow the development of our constituencies was not possible. To strengthen the government and for the development of our constituencies we have merged.”
Kavalekar further blamed the disunity within the Congress for the failure to form a government despite being given the opportunity by the people of the State. “We all wanted that we should have our government. Despite having the opportunity why our government wasn’t formed is known to all. Whenever there is an opportunity just because of no unity amongst the senior people we have had to remain away from the government,” he added.
