Senior Congress leader M K Shaikh while welcoming Congress Rajya Sabha MP Mukul Wasnik at Goa Airport on Monday. Captured by : Vikram Nayak
VASCO
Senior Congress leader M K Shaikh on Monday said that defection attempt of Congress MLAs, allegedly at the behest of Margao MLA Digambar Kamat, was least expected from the former chief minister.
Speaking to reporters at Goa Airport in Dabolim, Shaikh said the Congress had six MLAs intact and that Rajya Sabha MP Mukul Wasnik was in the State as political observer at the request of Congress President Sonia Gandhi.
"There has been some political developments but we still have 6 MLAs intact with us since Sunday and they even attended our CLP meeting where we resolved to take action against Michael Lobo. We are not aware of what Lobo is claiming but we are not in touch with the other 5 MLAs who went incommunicado. We cannot say about who engineered this but the developments were shocking," said Shaikh.
"It was least expected that Digambar Kamat’s name would surface in these political developments. Kamat has not officially left the party, resigned from the party nor joined any other party as of now and we cannot comment on what would be the next step of those 5 MLAs.”
Shaikh said the Congress had tried its best to give young blood a chance and even get them elected as legislators.
“But despite this, if they want to defect it is their mistake. Gundu Rao has done a great job to control the damage and it was only because of him that the attempts to split the party was thwarted," said Shaikh.
