Deepak Pausakar, one of the two Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) MLAs who joined the BJP in the early hours of Wednesday, was sworn in as a Minister in the BJP-led coalition government by Goa Governor Mridula Sinha at Raj Bhavan late at night.
Chief Minister Pramod Sawant and his Cabinet colleagues, among others, were present.
The swearing-in was the culmination of a series of political developments which started at around 1.45 am when two of the three MLAs of the BJP ally MGP, Minister for Tourism Manohar Ajgaonkar and Mr. Pauskar, announced a split in the MGP legislature party and merged their group in the saffron party.
Hours after the two joined the BJP, Mr. Sawant had dropped Deputy Chief Minister and senior MGP leader Sudin Dhavalikar from the Cabinet.
The Congress and the BJP now have 14 MLAs each in the House, whose current strength is 36. Four seats in the 40-member Assembly are vacant.
Shiroda bypoll
At a press conference at the State Secretariat, the Chief Minister said Mr. Dhavalikar had been dropped because his party had breached the coalition government’s common minimum programme. Mr. Sawant also blamed Mr. Dhavalikar for putting the interests of his brother and MGP president, Dipak Dhavalikar, ahead of those of the coalition government.
The major issue between the MGP and the BJP related to Dipak Dhavalikar’s insistence that he would contest the byelection to the Shiroda Assembly seat, ignoring the BJP’s requests not to do so. “If he [Sudin] thinks his brother’s interest is bigger than that of his party and the government, then I cannot do anything about it,” Mr. Sawant said.
In a separate press conference soon after he was dropped from the Cabinet, Mr. Dhavalikar accused the BJP of breaking the party and called it “night-time dacoity.”
“The chowkidars have shocked the people of Goa,” Mr. Dhavalikar said.
Mr. Sawant, however, said the BJP was not responsible for engineering a split. The two MLAs had joined the party on their own, asserting that they had felt unsafe in the MGP. “They also feared they would be rendered unattached MLAs or sacked. When a person wants to join our party, he is always welcome.”
Eye on 3 Assembly seats
The MGP president said the party was considering fielding candidates for the election to Lok Sabha and three Assembly seats.
On the issue of the MGP withdrawing support to the BJP-led coalition with his brother as its lone MLA, Mr. Dhavalikar said: “We will take a decision on this in a couple of days.”
He also said the BJP was trying to finish off regional parties in the country, and accused the ruling party of committing “political dacoity” by poaching MLAs late at night. “There is little chance of BJP MLAs winning in the current political atmosphere. That is why they are luring MLAs. If one goes by what happened today, this national party uses and throws people and parties,” Mr. Dhavalikar said.
Alves Gomes, the Aam Aadmi Party’s State convener, accused the BJP of “keeping daggers at all times that are used to stab ‘friends’ at any moment”.
