the goan I network
PANAJI
Former Chief Minister and Navelim MLA, Luizinho Faleiro on Friday said the Congress will get back the mandate robbed from it in 2017 when results to the four bye-elections in Goa are declared on May 23.
“Thou shalt not steal...the BJP stole our mandate after the 2017 election. We will get back the mandate on May 23 after the results of the four bye-elections are declared,” Faleiro said, while addressing a joint press conference at the Congress headquarters along with two other ex-CMs Ravi Naik and Pratapsing Rane, Opposition Leader Chandrakant Kavlekar, GPCC president Girish Chodankar and half a dozen Congress MLAs.
Faleiro expressed confidence that after May 23, the Congress will get the mandate and will be in a position to form the government.
Faleiro said, the Congress will not allow the misuse of the Constitution in the manner it was done following the 2017 Assembly elections and recalled that the Governor had erred by not inviting the single largest party (Congress) to form the government.
He also said, that he was confident the people of Panaji will back the Congress candidate Atanasio Monserrate in the by-election on Sunday as the BJP, which ruled here for 25 years, had failed to deliver on the basic needs of the people, including water supply, better roads and garbage management in the capital.
Meanwhile, Faleiro ducked questions on how the Congress will manage the numbers to form the government after May 23. He also did not shed any light whether the party was in touch with the Goa Forward Party of Deputy Chief Minister Vijai Sardesai, which has three MLAs.
The Congress is currently tied with the ruling BJP with 14 MLAs. There are three independents and one MLA each of the MGP and NCP.
Rane meanwhile sought to argue that Congress will form a government in Goa irrespective of which regime comes to power in Delhi after the Lok Sabha results.
“Please understand that it is a federal government. The Centre cannot and should not interfere. It can only in special circumstances such as law-and-order or certain Constitutional circumstances,” Rane said.
Recent history however has shown that governments have either fallen or have been formed in Goa taking a cue from political regime changes in Delhi.
Rane himself has been dethroned twice - 1990 and 1998 - due to unfavourable political winds of change in Delhi, which the octogenarian politician however dismissed as “misuse of power” by the Centre.
The current BJP-led coalition government headed by Pramod Sawant in Goa has a slender majority and the results could have a telling effect on its continuance or otherwise, depending also on which way the wind blows
in Delhi.
