Sandesh Prabhudesai
5 July 1999
The defection game has begun once again in Goa within a month after electing a new state Assembly, this time not to form an alternate government but to simply save the Congress government from being toppled.
Suresh Parulekar and Jose Philip D’Souza, both the United Goans Democratic Party legislators, were hurriedly admitted into the 21-strong Congress on Sunday night to increase their strength in the 40-member House.
After consistently denying reports right from the time he took over as the chief minister, Luizinho Faleiro however now admits that attempts are on to topple his government. But he blames the BJP for instigating his dissatisfied party MLAs to split and form alternate government.
Dissidence within the ruling party is brewing since the party chief Sonia Gandhi has remained adamant not to expand Goa’s cabinet beyond eight, two more than what they promised in the party manifesto. But it leaves at least seven to eight aspirants for the ministerial berths.
Faleiro’s recent attempt to airdash to the national capital also proved futile as the party leadership instructed him not to expand his cabinet before end of the month-long monsoon session, which begins on Wednesday. In fact, Delhi prefers that Faleiro waits till Lok Sabha elections.
This obviously aggravated the situation and Faleiro tried to counter it by engineering defections in the UGDP, going against the assurance given in the manifesto not to do so. "How can I keep quite when the BJP is trying to destabilise me by giving public invitation to my partymen", he asks.
"He is gone mad", alleges Manohar Parrikar, the opposition leader belonging to the BJP, while challenging him to provide evidence. "I can overnight topple his government, but not interested in splitting the Congress", he adds. He however does not deny the possibility of the BJP supporting the alternate government, provided the Congress splits on its own.
