Amid Goa Congress crisis, Assembly Speaker says no information on party split
Ahead of the Goa Assembly session, Speaker Ramesh Tawadkar on Monday said he had not received any intimation about a ‘split’ in the state Congress Legislature Party.
On Sunday, out of the total 11 Congress MLAs in the state, five — Michael Lobo, Digambar Kamat, Kedar Naik, Rajesh Faldesai and Delialah Lobo — went incommunicado, a senior party leader earlier said.
The Congress subsequently removed Lobo from the post of Leader of Opposition and said the new LoP will be named before the Assembly session.
Congress’s Goa desk in-charge Dinesh Gundu Rao on Sunday alleged that “Lobo and Kamat were hatching a conspiracy by hobnobbing with the BJP to engineer a split in the Congress”.
As on Monday morning, five of the Congress MLAs, in the 40-member Goa Assembly, were with the party, while five others remained out of reach. Another MLA Aleixo Sequeira was at home and pledged his support to the party.
A senior Congress leader said they had moved the five MLAs, who are with the party, to an undisclosed location to avoid further ‘split’ in the outfit.
On Monday, when reporters asked Tawadkar about a “split” in the Congress, the Speaker said, “I have no intimation whatsoever. I was in my office on Sunday preparing for the monsoon session of the Assembly.” He also replied in negative when asked if he was informed about the change of Leader of Opposition by the Congress Legislature Party.