Sardinha, not Narvekar, joins Cong

Sandesh Prabhudesai
5 April 2001  

The circle of greedy politics is near completion. Former chief minister Francisco Sardinha joined the Congress today, after splitting from the party two years ago to rule Goa along with the Bharatiya Janata Party.

"All like-minded people should come together to end the communal rule of the BJP in Goa", he said, after staging a homecoming along with his other defector colleague Mauvin Godinho and office bearers.

Dayanand Narvekar, his one more colleague who was the deputy chief minister in his short-lived coalition government, however did not join the Congress. Being the president of the Goa Cricket Association, he is presently busy with the one-day cricket match to be played in Goa tomorrow.

But Sardinha, while expressing ignorance over Narvekar not joining the party, has announced that he has merged the Goan People's Congress into the Congress unconditionally.

Sardinha, along with 10 of his party colleagues including four ministers, had split the then ruling Congress within four months, forming a coalition with the 10-member BJP in the 40-member House.

It however lasted only for 11 months as total nine members (first five and then four in three months) including then opposition leader Ravi Naik (Dy CM today) split from the opposition Congress to join the BJP. The saffron party then withdrew support to the Sardinha government to form its own government in October last year.

Meanwhile, four more from Sardinha's GPC also split later, with two of them joining the BJP while one joined the Congress. Meanwhile, another four GPC men split to join the Congress, following which Sardinha and Godinho have also now joined the opposition party.

This leaves Narvekar, Arecio D'Souza and Suresh Parulekar - three Congress defectors still out of the party, but divided into three different factions with one member each. The Congress, on the other hand, has swollen to 13 against 20 ruling BJP.

Sardinha, who had revolted against then chief minister Luizinho Faleiro's alleged dictatorial attitude, now claims that the differences among them exist no more. Faleiro however still continues to be the CLP leader and the opposition leader.

This is a clear indication that the Congress is slowly getting all its partymen back into the party fold. However, the existing BJP government can fall only if it succeeds in getting eight more, including those former Congressmen holding ministerial positions in the BJP government today.

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