PANAJI: The passing away of the Mapusa MLA, Francis D’Souza, altered the arithmetic of the Goa legislative assembly, reducing its strength to 37 and catapulting the Opposition Congress to the position of the single largest party in the House.
The strength of the ruling BJP got reduced to 13, while the Congress has a total of 14 MLAs. The PWD Minister Sudin Dhavlikar-led MGP has 3, TCP Minister Vijai Sardesai-led GFP has three and there are two independents besides the NCP’s Churcill Alemao.
The Congress was returned the single-largest party at the 2017 assembly elections with 17 MLAs while the BJP had won just 13. However, with support of the MGP, GFP and the Independents, the BJP formed the government and three MLAs of the Congress quit to switch sides - Vishwajit Rane, Subhash Shirodkar and Dayanad Sopte.
Rane was subsequently re-elected on BJP ticket in a bye-election while the polls to fill Shirodkar and Sopte’s vacancies are yet to be held.
The equation reduced the Congress tally to 14 on par with that of the BJP thus robbing it of the technical status of being the single-largest party. The party now regains that status with D’Souza’s passing away reducing the BJP’s strength to 13.
