Two ailing Ministers in the BJP-led coalition government in Goa were dropped from the Cabinet on Monday.
Replacing them, are Mormugao MLA and former Power Minister Milind Naik and Curchorem MLA Nilesh Cabral. The BJP leaders were inducted into the Cabinet following a swearing-in ceremony at the Raj Bhavan on Monday.
The Ministers who were dropped are Francis D’Souza, who held the Urban Development portfolio, and Pandurang Madkaikar, who was in charge of the Power Ministry.
Mr. D’Souza, who is being treated for cancer at a New York hospital, reacted bitterly. “This is the reward for working for the party for 20 long years. I have been ill for only a month,” he said.
Mr. Madkaikar, who suffered a brain-stroke in June this year, is being treated in Mumbai.
The new Ministers said that they were informed of the news by Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar on Monday morning.
“The Chief Minister phoned me and told me that I am being made a Minister. Decision on portfolios are yet to be taken. I don’t have any preferences... I leave it to God,” Mr. Naik said.
When asked about the sacking of the two Ministers, Mr. Cabral said that was the CM’s prerogative.
Meanwhile, Public Works Minister Sudin Dhavalikar defended the BJP’s decision to allow Mr. Parrikar to continue as CM despite his illness. “We have elected a Chief Minister and he is doing a good job. [Former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister] Jayalalithaa was unwell for a year-and-a-half and no one raised an issue,” he told reporters on the sidelines of the swearing-in ceremony.
