New Delhi, : Ten Goa Congress MLAs who quit party and joined BJP on Wednesday arrived here and would be meeting BJP president Amit Shah and working president J P Nadda among others.
Chief Minister Pramod Sawant also accompanied them.
The high political drama in Goa unfolded in a rather unprecedented manner amid major political crisis being confronted by the Congress in Karnataka.
Congress legislators – Chandrakant Kavalekar, Atanasio Monserrate, Jennifer Monserrate, Nilkant Halarnkar, Tony Fernandes, Francis Silveira, Wilfred De Sa, Filipe Neri Rodgrigues, Clafasio Dias and Isidore Fernandes quit Congress and announced in Goa that the splinter group – ten of them out of fifteen – have ‘merged with the BJP’.
Chief Minister Pramod Sawant said the ‘merger’ of the rebel group and the latest political development would strengthen the BJP-led government in the state.
“We have seen Chief Minister Sawant’s working style. He is working for the progress of the state. We decided to join hands with him,” one of the defectors and ‘Leader of Opposition’ in the Assembly Chandrakant Kavlekar said.
Chief Minister Sawant claimed that the rebels have decided to join BJP unconditionally and there would be no expansion of the cabinet immediately.
Mr Kavalekar also said, “We have merged into the BJP only with the objective to work under Prime Minister Narendra Modi”. He also blamed ‘disunity’ within the Congress for party’s failure in Goa and also at the national level.
UNI.
