Opening old wounds, former Goa Chief Minister and Congress MLA Luizinho Faleiro on Tuesday openly blamed former AICC general secretary in-charge of Goa Digvijaya Singh for inability of the Congress party to form a government in Goa after being the single largest party post-2017 Assembly elections.
In a chat on Tuesday with presspersons on the sidelines of a function at Navelim, his Assembly constituency in South Goa, Mr. Faleiro recalled that it was Mr. Singh, who had stopped him, as the State unit Congress president and elected MLA from submitting a letter to the Goa Governor Mridula Sinha in March 2017, for formation of a Congress-led alliance government.
“When Digvijay Singh did not allow, I as a protest resigned from the PCC,” Mr. Faleiro said.
“I had as a protest refused to take the leadership of Congress Legislative Party to become the Lader of Opposition. I had refused, even though I had the highest number of votes, nearly 12 to 13 votes out of 17 (Congress MLAs),” caimed Mr. Faleiro, who is currently AICC in-charge of organisational and political affairs in the seven North Eastern States.
In March 2017, the Congress had failed to stake the first claim to form a government, despite emerging as the single largest party in the assembly polls.
On the other hand the Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP), taking advantage of in-fighting in the Congress over Chief Ministership, pushed the party’s bid to form a government under then Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar.
“They (Congress leaders) had promised that they will form the government within 24 hours. Now 24 months have passed. I have patience. But I have not interfered, I will not interfere, nor do I want to contest the elections,” Mr. Faleiro said referring to local Congress leaders.
