South Goa MP Francisco Sardinha making a point on the defection by the eight Congress MLAs into the BJP. Captured by : Santosh Mirajkar
MARGAO
A day after eight Congress MLAs defected from the party to join the BJP, senior Congress leader and South Goa MP Francisco Sardinha on Thursday squarely blamed ex-GPCC Chief Girish Chodankar and Digambar Kamat responsible for giving tickets to these candidates to contest the 2022 Assembly polls.
He further said the defection of the eight MLAs will have no bearing on the Congress and its prospects in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, saying though the MLAs have defected to the BJP, Congress workers and voters have remained intact.
He also complimented the three MLAs, Yuri Alemao, Alton D’Costa and Carlos Alvares for standing by the party, exuding confidence that the trio will play the role as an effected opposition in the Assembly.
Addressing the media, Sardinha said he had lodged his objections to tickets being given to certain candidates for the 2022 polls, but both Girish Chodankar and Digambar Kamat had their way. “I hold both Kamat and Girsh responsible for the present state of affairs since they were responsible for giving the tickets. Today, I have heard Congress leader Agnelo Fernandes saying that party leaders had taken money to give tickets for the candidate. I will verify from Agnelo when I meet him to find out who were the Congress leaders who pocketed money from the candidates”, he said.
Saying that the BJP has not finished the Congress, but has only managed to purchase the MLAs who have gone into the ruling party, Sardinha said the people of Goa will teach the traitors as well as BJP a lesson at the right time. “You have seen the fate of the seven out of the 10 MLAs who had defected to the Congress last time round. The same fate will befall on the eight MLAs”, he warned.
The MP directed his tirade at the Chief Minister Pramod Sawant saying the Chief Minister has been murdering democracy. Demanding to know from Cong-turned-BJP MLA Digambar Kamat for his statement that God has granted him permission to leave the Congress, Sardinha asserted that the remaining seven MLAs must have been sent into the BJP by the devil.
He asked the party workers to show black flags to the defectors to register their protest over the defection.
