Sandesh Prabhudesai
26 July 1999
Fighting against all the odds, former union minister Eduardo Faleiro
today got elected as Goa’s sole Rajya Sabha member, while also establishing the fact
once again that the Congress government in Goa is still stable.
In fact the Rajya Sabha election has added one more feather to the
Congress cap with the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party helping the Congress to win by
abstaining. All the four MGP legislators led by former union minister Ramakant Khalap are
presently in Delhi, negotiating with the Congress high command to form a coalition
government.
In the bargain, Goa Rajiv Congress candidate Bhavanishankar Gadnis,
Delhi-based supreme court lawyer, could muster only 12 votes out of 40. GRC leader Wilfred
de Souza managed to get 10 BJP votes, besides his two.
AICC general secretary Oscar Fernandes as well as Ramesh Chennithala,
both high command emissaries, term the victory as a live demonstration of Congress unity,
claiming that the news of brewing dissension within the Congress legislature party is
totally false.
The fact however still remains that chief minister Luizinho Faleiro is
trying to rope in "like-minded and secular" opposition groups into the Congress
fold in order to counter the dissension within. The MGP is the second target after
admitting both UGDP legislators last month into the ruling party, which had originally
only 21 members in the 40-member House.
The chief minister himself has publicly admitted the attempts being
made to hatch a conspiracy to dislodge his government by wooing his disgruntled
legislators, vying for ministerial positions. The problem has arisen with the cabinet
being restricted to only six while its expansion with two or three is also pending.
Besides ministerial berths to the UGDP and the MGP, the Congress has
also offered one Lok Sabha seat to Khalap among the two. But the final decision would be
taken only after talks with Madhavrao Scindia, in-charge of Goa, in the national capital
materialise, states Chennithala.
It is a fact that the Congress has managed to win the Rajya Sabha polls
by assuring cabinet berth to every aspirant among eight to nine. But future of the
Congress government would ultimately depend upon who among the original Congressmen,
former UGDP men and the new coalition partners would be inducted while expanding the
cabinet.
Chennithala hopes that the coalition talks would be finalised without
delay after which the chief minister could decide about the cabinet expansion, the key
issue due with which Faleiro had managed to keep his one-month old government
"stable".
