the goan I network
PANAJI
Lone MGP MLA Sudin Dhavalikar opened a can of worms in the Assembly on Monday when he questioned what was happening to “democracy” in recent times with 10 Congress MLAs recently switching sides and two MGP MLAs, now Ministers, before them. Dhavalikar was speaking to support the motion of thanks for the Goa Governor’s address to the Assembly in January 2019.
“What is happening to democracy? Is this democracy... what’s happening? Is this nation-building?” questioned a disgruntled Dhavalikar, who recited cum sang three or four Sanskrit poems about “democracy” and “nation building” that the governor had put in her address.
However, Tourism Minister Babu Ajgaonkar who had won his seat on an MGP ticket, and was a former MGP colleague of Sudin’s did not take what Sudin was saying lying down, recapping a little political history.
“In 1999 when I was with the Congress, you were the first one to approach me to ask my support to topple the government. You are at the “top-level” of all these coups,” said Ajgaonkar. “Luizinho Faleiro had
taken over as CM, and it was Sudin Dhavalikar who first came to me to ask me how many months I needed to help him overthrow the government,” he said, to a chorus of laughter from the House.
“But I stayed with the Congress cause I am not one to topple governments, only come together with them to form them,” said Ajgaonkar, adding that he had not mentioned this before as he had no intentions of following Sudin then. “Then God alone knows how many Congress MLAs he took with him to form the government, while Babu Ajgaonkar stayed put in the Congress,” added Ajgaonkar.
Ajgaonkar also added that no one was trying to destroy democracy right now, but take it forward.
The debate came to an end when Speaker Patnekar asked them to settle their personal scores outside the Assembly.
