the goan I network
PANAJI
The lethal blow dealt to the Congress by its own Opposition leader Chandrakant Kavlekar and nine other MLAs isn’t one out of the blue and reports of its coming had been circulating for weeks.
A fortnight ago, BJP’s state president, Vinay Tendulkar had stated on record that a group of 10 Congress MLAs had made an offer of “merging” with the ruling party but that it was rejected because the party High Command had not approved of it.
Days after the Lok Sabha elections gave the Narendra Modi-led BJP a massive mandate, there were also reports of individual Congress MLAs quitting to contest bye-elections on a BJP ticket.
The names circulating then were of Cuncolim MLA Clafasio Dias and Canacona MLA Isidore Fernandes. In fact, Clafasio had even held a meeting with his Cuncolim
constituency workers to discuss the proposal of joining the BJP and contesting a bye-election. It however fizzled out.
On Wednesday, indications that a political storm will hit Goa came early when before noon, Chief Minister Pramod Sawant cancelled a scheduled cabinet meeting. By afternoon, Deputy Chief Minister Vijai Sardesai got wind of the brewing storm but he went ahead and chaired a Town and Country Planning Board meeting in the evening.
He nevertheless had told The Goan that he would talk to Sawant about the “rumours” that some Congress MLAs are in line to join the BJP. He had also said, twenty-three is a comfortable number to run the government and there was no need to increase the strength.
