Lobo’s flirting with non BJP forces could have prompted charge sheet

Team Herald

 PANJIM: The First Information Report (FIR) filed in 2009 by Goa Police against Michael Lobo, was lodged during the Congress government and it took Crime Branch seven years to file the charge sheet in the Mapusa JMFC court, at a time when the BJP is in power and Lobo is a MLA of the party in government.

There is speculation that Lobo’s moves to dabble with the Congress before the next Assembly elections may have worked against him. Senior Congress leaders said Lobo has been in touch with them in the last two months and this may have led to the pressure on Lobo. Sources said he was offered a berth in the Laxmikant Parsekar cabinet a month ago, but he has denied this.

“Whoever wants to do anything is free to do it. I have no problem. Whatever is the case it will be finalised in court,” Lobo told Herald on Friday.

He said he was being targetted by former Calangute MLA Agnelo Fernandes and the FIR was a fall out of that. “Agnelo is disturbed because I have a strong grip of Calangute,” he said.

Crime Branch sources said there were special instructions from ‘top bosses’ to file the charge sheet as early as possible, given rise to the speculation that Lobo’s move to quit BJP could be the reason for the charge sheet.

Political analysts claim that Lobo has influence in the neighbouring constituencies, including Saligao, Siolim and Aldona and if he joined hands with the Congress this could affect BJP. The charge sheet is BJP’s strategy to control the first-time MLA from coastal Bardez.

“Somebody wants to corner me in this case. My Chief Minister could have at least asked me about the case when he had heard about it,” Lobo, shocked at the filing of the charge sheet, said.

Fernandes said BJP may have realised that Lobo is flying too high and so want to control him. “It is not only with the Congress that he may have been in contact with, but he is in contact with everybody, even the third front of Vijai (Sardesai), Rohan (Khaunte) and others,” Fernandes said.

“It is a policy of the BJP that whoever is charge sheeted in a crime should be dropped. I am not demanding his resignation but will wait and watch if he steps down on moral grounds from the positions he enjoys in the government or let us see if this government makes another U-turn,” Fernandes said.

Calangute Sarpanch Joseph Sequeira said he will wait for the law to takes its own course. “I cannot be Michael to take the law in my hands and demolish people’s houses and compound walls,” Sequeira said when asked if the local panchayat will take action against Lobo’s hotel which is now being probed.

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