The Goa unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party on Friday declared that it will send a legal notice to AICC vice president Rahul Gandhi and AICC secretary Girish Chodankar for making allegedly defamatory statements about the BJP and its legislators, including an accusation that the BJP had spent Rs. 1,000 crore to lure non-Congress MLAs.
Goa BJP president Vinay Tendulkar said on Friday that the legal notice was being drafted and would be issued to both “either by Friday evening or Saturday morning. They have made wild and baseless accusations in the last few days. We are not going to take it lightly,” Mr. Tendulkar said.
He described the accusation that the BJP had spent Rs. 1,000 crore to lure MLAs and carry out horse-trading in the post-poll government-formation was “baseless and unfair.” On Wednesday, Mr. Chodankar had alleged that the BJP had spent around Rs. 1000 crore to lure non-Congress MLAs to join the BJP-led coalition in a bid to form government.
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“Nothing less than Rs. 1,000 crore has been spent by the BJP to lure and buy MLAs over to their side,” Mr. Chodankar had alleged and further said that State BJP general secretary Sadanand Tanavde was in the know of this. Mr. Tanavde had denied the allegations, and told this paper that he had not given anybody even “five paise.”
The state unit is also angry about a similar allegation made in Delhi on the same day by Mr. Gandhi who alleged that money power had been used for horse-trading. Mr. Chodankar said that he is willing to face the defamation proceedings.
“The BJP will also have to answer why three helicopters had landed at the Goa airport soon after a senior Central Minister arrived in the State. What were the helicopters carrying? Crackers from Delhi,” Mr. Chodankar asked. The BJP which won 13 seats in the February 4 elections, formed a government in Goa with a coalition of 23 in the 40-Member House.
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The Congress, which emerged as the single largest party with 17 MLAs has also questioned the role of Goa governor Mridula Sinha as she did not give Congress the first opportunity to form a government.