PANAJI
After over a year of speculation and intermittent media reportage there is again intense speculation that Chief Minister Pramod Sawant will soon make changes in his Cabinet team.
BJP sources say Public Works Department (PWD) Minister Nilesh Cabral will be replaced in the Cabinet by Nuvem MLA Aleixo Sequeira.
Cabral, who has been sounded out about the decision, will voluntarily put in his papers soon and Sequeira will be sworn-in immediately, the BJP sources said.
Apart from Sawant and other top State BJP leadership, Cabral was also spoken to by the Central party leaders, including National general secretary B L Santosh.
The development could take place as early as Sunday, the sources said, adding that backhand talks and negotiations to pave the way for the shake-up in the Cabinet had been initiated by Sawant a few days ago.
Apparently three ministers from the minority community -- Mauvin Godinho, Nilesh Cabral and Atanasio (Babush) Monserrate -- were sounded out about the party's decision to replace any one of them with Sequeira in the Cabinet.
Finally, it was Cabral that the party zeroed in on to replace.
The spectre of a cabinet shake-up has been hovering over Goa's political stage for over a year ever since eight Congress MLAs, including then Opposition Leader Michael Lobo, defected to the BJP within six months of the general election results in mid-September last year.
Sequeira and former chief minister Digambar Kamat were part of that group admitted to the BJP and it was speculated then that two of the eight were promised ministerial positions.
But both Sawant and BJP State President Sadanand Shet Tanavade refuted the reports even as five other defector MLAs were accommodated with positions as chairpersons of State-owned Corporations.
Now, the party has taken the decision to accommodate Sequeira in the Cabinet.
Chief Minister Pramod Sawant, meanwhile neither denied nor confirmed the reports doing the rounds since Saturday morning that BJP high command had instructed PWD Minister Nilesh Cabral to resign as minister saying everything will be known once a decision has been taken.
“You will come to know when the high command takes a decision on this”, the chief minister told media when asked about such reports.
