the goan I network
MARGAO
Asserting that defections were not new to Goa, Navelim MLA and former Chief Minister Luizinho Faleiro on Saturday said the State had witnessed these around five to six times in the past, even as he called for revisiting the 10th Schedule of the Constitution to stop the scourge.
Faleiro further said he is no more interested in taking over the reins of the Goa Pradesh Congress Committee or the CLP leadership, but hastened to add that he would remain a loyal Congressman and serve the party as its loyal soldier.
“As part of BJP’s Congress-mukt Bharat agenda, the ruling party is on a spree to engineer defections in the Congress across the country. They had done it in Goa, in neighbouring Karnataka and in the North East. But, the BJP, with a huge majority, should look at the 10th Schedule to bar defections. Even if a MLA tries to defect, he should be disqualified and barred from contesting the immediate election,” Faleiro told the media.
Saying he has nothing to speak on defections since this is not the first time Goa has witnessed it, Faleiro said “in the past, as many as seven MLAs had defected. This time, the number has gone up to 10.”
Saying that he was stopped by a Congress leader from forming the government post-2017 Assembly election despite the party having the numbers and the CLP electing him as a leader, Faleiro said he has decided not to interfere in the day-to-day affairs of the party as well as the CLP.
When the media drew his attention to the fact that the CLP leader Babu Kavlekar himself led the 10 MLAs into the BJP, Faleiro said, “When I asked Babu about his defection, he cited certain reasons which I cannot make public. As far as I am concerned, I am shuttling between Delhi and Goa and working in Navelim as a loyal Congressman.”
To another question, Faleiro said the party national leadership has asked him whether he was interested in contesting the LS poll, adding that he had said a firm no on grounds that he would not be able to do justice to the job.
