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Two MLAs switch sides in Goa

Sandesh Prabhudesai in Panaji

The defection game has begun once again in Goa, less than a month after electing a new state assembly. This time it is not to form an alternative government but to simply save the Congress government from being toppled.

Suresh Parulekar and Jose Philip D'Souza, both United Goans Democratic Party legislators, were hurriedly admitted into the 21-member strong Congress Legislature Party on Sunday night to increase its strength in the 40-member House.

Having consistently denied it right from the time he took over as the chief minister, Luizinho Faleiro, however, now admits that attempts are on to topple his government. He blames the Bharatiya Janata Party for instigating his dissatisfied party Members of the Legislative Assembly to split the Congress.

Dissidence within the ruling party has been brewing ever since party chief Sonia Gandhi withheld permission to expand Goa's cabinet beyond eight, two more than what the party promised in its manifesto. It has left the seven to eight aspirants for ministerial berths in the cold.

The Congress leadership recently instructed Faleiro not to expand his cabinet before the end of the month-long monsoon session, which begins on Wednesday. In fact Delhi prefers that Faleiro wait till the Lok Sabha elections.

This obviously aggravated the situation and Faleiro tried to counter it by engineering defections in the UGDP. "How can I keep quite when the BJP is trying to destabilise us by publicly inviting my partymen to defect", he asks.

"He is gone mad," counters Manohar Parrikar, the opposition leader belonging to the BJP, and challenges Faleiro to provide evidence. "We can overnight topple his government, but we are not interested in splitting the Congress,'' he adds.

He, however, does not deny the possibility of the BJP supporting an alternative government, provided the Congress splits on its own.

When the state assembly will vote by secret ballot on July 26 to elect a representative to the Rajya Sabha, Parrikar seems confident that the Congress candidate would be defeated, thereby sparking a revolt. Rather than planning for the budget session, Faleiro is now busy preparing for this possible rebellion.

He is reportedly desperately trying to woo all the four legislators belonging to the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party, including its leader and former Union minister Ramakant Khalap by offering him a Lok Sabha seat.

All this will obviously make the first session of the new assembly a stormy one.

Meanwhile, BJP president Kushabhau Thakre arrived here today to attend the party's state executive meeting. But party functionaries deny any moves being planned to topple the Congress government.

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