NCP withdraws support
to Digambar
Sandesh
Prabhudesai
16 January 2008
The seven-month old Digambar Kamat government, led by the
Congress, has once again plunged into minority with the three-member
Nationalist Congress Party and independent minister Vishwajeet
Rane withdrawing its support.
Kamat's alliance government had support of 21 legislators
in the 40-member House. It has reduced to a minority with
three ministers resigning - Jose Philip D'Souza and Micky
Pacheco of the NCP and Vishwajeet, the independent.
D'Souza has even announced that the NCP would stake claim
to form the alternate government.
On the other side are 14 members of the Bharatiya Janata
Party, two recently requalified members of the Maharashtrawadi
Gomantak Party, Taleigao MLA Babush Monseratte and yet another
independent Anil Salgaoncar.
It all began today afternoon with speculations that the rebel
group within the alliance may note vote in favour of the appropriation
bill in the ongoing Assembly session. The government gets
automatically defeated, as per the law, if it cannot win the
finance bill.
The suspicion rose further as two Congress legislators -
Curchorem MLA Sham Satardekar and Pale MLA Gurudas Gawas as
well as Save Goa Front MLA Alex Reginald Lawrenco were not
present in the House.
To avert the crisis, chief minister Kamat got the introduction
of the appropriation bill postponed by one day, claiming that
he has been instructed by the central government to immediately
rush to the accident spot in North Goa. The tragic accident
killed 12 people in a bus-tanker crash, including nine Gujarati
tourists.
This was followed by three ministers quitting the government
by late evening and the NCP withdrawing support late night.
These developments have reduced Kamat government to mere
18, while the rebel camp has swollen to 22.
Sources in the rebel camp also claim that Lawrenco of Save
Goa and Satardekar of the Congress may also quit their respective
parties to seek ministerial berths in the alternate government,
while reducing the strength of the House to 38. They will
later contest by-elections.
Gawas, another Congress legislator, arrived in Goa late tonight
from Mumbai, after treatment of his illness.
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