Babu & Pavaskar merge MGP group into BJP! Why?
SANDESH PRABHUDESAI, PANAJI | 27 March 2019 03:30 IST
Finally it happened. MGP Minister Babu Azgaonkar and Sanvordem MLA Deepak Pavaskar split from the party and merged their two third group into the Bharatiya Janata Party post-midnight at around 2.30 am.
They handed over a letter in this regard to acting Speaker Michael Lobo in the presence of Chief Minister Dr Pramod Sawant and Goa BJP President Vinay Tendulkar.
Based on the note moved by Legislature Secretariat Under Secretary in this regard, Lobo approved the merger instantly, stating that they had merged the group on 26th March.
The reason for this midnight drama learnt to be to pre-empt the plan to expel both of them from the party at the central executive meeting of the MGP today, Wednesday.
The central executive, with majority votes of 8 against 6, had recently expelled MGP general secretary Lavu Mamledar from the party for six years.
This was because Lavu had submitted a letter to the Speaker, requesting him not to accept any letter from any other office bearer of the party.
Lavu had submitted this letter, reportedly to avoid a planned expulsion of both Babu and Pavaskar from the party.
The whole drama is primarily moving around the pressure mounting on MGP President Deepak Dhavalikar from withdrawing from the fray in the Shiroda by-poll against BJP candidate Subhash Shirodkar.
In order to reduce the strength of opposition Congress as the single largest party, BJP had earlier engineered a split with Shiroda MLA Subhash Shirodkar and Mandrem MLA Dayanand Sopte resigning from the Congress and joining the BJP.
As they did not constitute two third majority, which is permitted under the Tenth Schedule of Anti-Defection Act, both of them had resigned from the party. Thus the by-elections in Shiroda and Mandrem.
The whole drama now may also result into dropping of Deputy Chief Minister Sudin Dhavalikar, who is the MGP leader.
MGP is a coalition partner in the MGP-led coalition government.
While MGP had in 2017 supported only Manohar Parrikar as the CM, after his sad demise last week, it had supported the BJP to form the government with Pramod Sawant as the new leader, in order to stick to power.
However, in spite of pressures, Deepak Dhavalikar is refusing to withdraw from the fray. If he does not, then BJP may simply drop Sudin from the government.
The election notification would be issued on 28th March, for Lok Sabha and Assembly bye-elections while the last date of withdrawal is 8th April.
At present, the strength of the Assembly is 36 with Subhash and Sopte resigning and demise of Parrikar (Panaji) and Francisco D’Souza (Mapusa).
Dr Sawant had last week won the trust vote by 20 against 15, with the support of three members each of the MGP, Goa Forward and Independents.
Even after this new development, BJP continues having majority of 20 (including Speaker) in the House with its own strength now increasing to 14, equivalent to the opposition Congress.
The Congress thus cannot claim any more that it is the single largest party, based on which it was staking claim to form the alternate government.
The situation however continues to be fluid since the majority required in the Assembly is 19 while BJP has a wafer thin majority of only 20, including three independents.
Only two independents – Rohan Khaunte and Govind Gaude are the ministers. Third independent MLA Prasad Gaonkar is presently upset because he was not inducted in the cabinet of Dr Sawant.
Same fate will become of GFP