Friday, 17 May, 2024
By: Yash Gupte
In a major jolt to the Indian National Congress in the coastal state of Goa, eight out of eleven MLAs of the party joined the ruling Bhartiya Janata Party on the politically charged Wednesday.
In a major jolt to the Indian National Congress in the coastal state of Goa, eight out of eleven MLAs of the party joined the ruling Bhartiya Janata Party on the politically charged Wednesday. Top leaders like former chief minister of Goa Digambar Kamat, Michael Lobo orchestrated the defection of the congress MLAs into the BJP. With this development, the INC is left with just 3 MLAs. The eight MLAs who joined the saffron party include Digambar Kamat, Michael Lobo and his wife Delilah Lobo, Rajesh Phaldesai, Kedar Naik, Sankalp Amonkar, Aleixo Sequeira and Rudolf Fernandes.
The political development in Panjim on Wednesday has come as a major shock for the grand old party as it has been focusing on the 2024 Loksabha elections through the Bharat Jodo yatra under the leadership of Rajiv Gandhi from past few days. In July, Digambar Kamat and Michael Lobo were in the centre of switchover suspicion, and the Congress even urged the speaker to disqualify them under the anti-defection law. The party fired Michael Lobo as Opposition Leader, but no replacement was appointed. Political analysts and experts have been speculating about the defection of a major bunch of MLAs from the Congress as there have been such indications from former congress heavyweights Digambar Kamat and Michael Lobo since July.
After meeting the secretary of the legislature, with the eight MLAs who merged the Congress legislature party with the BJP, Goa CM Pramod Sawant while talking to the reporters outside the Goa Legislative Assembly, praised the two rebel leaders and welcomed their decision.
State BJP chief Sadanand Tanavade told PTI about the merger of congress legislature party in to the BJP after the defecting MLAs held a meeting with the Speaker of Goa Legislative Assembly. Defection of Michael Lobo has been a kind of ‘Ghar Wapasi’ for him as before becoming a MLA from the Congress in 2022, he was a member of the BJP. The ruling party in the coastal state would have 33 of 40 MLAs—20 from the BJP, two from the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP), and three Independents who supported it to form the government in March. This comes after the merger of congress legislature party with the BJP. The Goa Congress was divided similarly in 2019, when two-thirds of its assembly strength — 10 of 15 MLAs — defected to the BJP, which is why the party made its candidates swear a loyalty oath in front of Rahul Gandhi this year but that obviously didn't work for at least eight of them.
Source: Election Commission of India
In 2012, the BJP emerged as the single largest party and comfortably formed the government as it had the required majority of 21 seats in the 40 member Goa legislative assembly. Manohar Parrikar became the CM of Goa. BJP had contested the 2012 elections in an alliance with the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) which won 3 seats. Congress managed to win just 9 seats. In the 2017 Goa legislative assembly elections, Congress emerged as the single largest party with 13 seats and BJP emerged victorious on 13 seats but was able to form a government without being the party with maximum seats as it formed a coalition government with the MGP which had won 3 seats and the Goa Forward Party (GFP) which had managed to win 3 seats in its first ever election under the leadership of Vijay Sardesai and the BJP also pulled the support of two independents. The AAP couldn’t manage to win even a single seat. Dr. Pramod Sawant became the CM of Goa after the death of former CM Manohar Parrikar.
The government became much stronger in the year 2019 as 10 MLAs from Congress defected to BJP. The result of 2022 assembly election was in favor of the BJP as it emerged as the single largest party with 20 seats and formed the government with the support of 2 MLAs of MGP and two independents. The AAP party emerged victorious on 2 seats and the newly formed Revolutionary Goans Party which was much discussed due to its demand of the passing of Persons of Goans Origin Bill, 2019 (POGO) managed to win 1 seat. Viresh Borkar, the president of the RGP won from St. Andre assembly constituency. As the BJP formed the government in the coastal state in 2022, Dr. Pramod Sawant continued to be the CM.
The INC had managed to win fair number of seats in the Goa assembly elections but the defections from the party has made it weak over the time. Rather than preparing for the Bharat Jodo Yatra, the Congress MLAs in Goa have favored Michael Lobo’s remark, ‘Congress ko Choro and BJP ko Jodo.’
