Panaji: The Congress appears to have averted a possible split in its legislative wing in Goa for the time being as on Monday it claimed the support of seven of the 11 party MLAs in the BJP-ruled state which saw Assembly polls just four months ago.
A day after five out of the 11 MLAs went incommunicado, Goa Congress chief Amit Patkar said the number of MLAs with the party has risen to seven — two more than Sunday's count — and the party has also sought disqualification of a couple of legislators.
These so far 'out of reach' MLAs attended the monsoon session of the state Assembly which began on Monday and claimed there was "nothing wrong" in the opposition party.
Patkar said senior leader Mukul Wasnik has reached Goa and a new Leader of the Opposition will be announced to succeed Michael Lobo, accused by the party of "conspiring and hobnobbing" with the BJP.
Patkar said Wasnik will hold a meeting of the Congress Legislature Party.
MLA Aleixo Sequeira and another Congress MLA have come to us. We had five MLAs with us on Sunday evening, now we have seven MLAs with us, he told reporters.
Patkar, however, refused to identify the seventh legislator.
A day earlier, the Congress had said five of its 11 MLAs in Goa had gone "incommunicado". The Congress had accused two of these legislators - Michael Lobo and former chief minister Digambar Kamat - of "conspiring and hobnobbing" with the ruling BJP to engineer a split in the grand old party's legislative wing.
The party removed Michael Lobo from the post of Leader of Opposition in the Assembly, which has 40 members.
Patkar said the Congress will announce a new Leader of Opposition (LoP) probably in the night on Monday.
He said Congress leaders met Assembly Speaker Ramesh Tawadkar to inform him about the removal of Michael Lobo as the LoP.
However, Michael Lobo claimed there was nothing wrong in the party.
There is nothing wrong. I don't know what is the problem. All Congress MLAs were together. We went to South Goa for a meeting on Sunday. They (Congress leaders) again wanted to have another press conference which was not required, so we did not attend it, said Michael Lobo, whose wife Delialah is also a Congress MLA.
He said they won the state election on the Congress's ticket and they stand with the party.
On replacing him as the Leader of Opposition, Michael said he had told the party that he was not interested to continue in the cabinet rank post.
Former chief minister Kamat and his Congress colleague Rajesh Faldesai also said they were with the party.
Meanwhile, Congress filed petitions with Speaker Tawadkar seeking disqualification of its MLAs Michael Lobo and Kamat. "Disqualification petitions have been filed against both the MLAs as they have voluntarily given up membership of the party. There is a Supreme Court judgment which states that any anti-party activity amounts to giving up of the membership of the party." Patkar claimed.
He said the BJP's move to split the Congress Legislative Party had failed as it could not muster the required numbers of legislators needed to do so without attracting provisions of the anti-defection law. "The BJP wanted to repeat what they have done in Maharashtra through money and muscle power. We ensured on Sunday that the defection in our party stops," Patkar said.