Congress sends Mukul Wasnik to Goa after 5 of its 11 MLAs go missing

New Delhi: Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Sunday asked senior party leader Mukul Wasnik to rush to Goa to "oversee latest political developments" in the state after the party said five of its 11 MLAs in the state have gone "incommunicado".

The Congress has accused two of these legislators - Michael Lobo and former chief minister Digambar Kamat - of "conspiring" and "hobnobbing'' with the ruling BJP to engineer a split in the grand old party's legislative wing.

In a late night tweet, AICC general secretary, organization, K C Venugopal, said, "Congress President has asked Shri @MukulWasnik, MP to rush to Goa to oversee latest political developments in the state." In a fresh trouble for the opposition Congress in Goa, the party said five of its 11 MLAs in the state have gone "incommunicado".

The party also removed Lobo from the post of Leader of Opposition in the state Assembly, which has 40 members.  The announcement about the legislators going incommunicado and the sacking of Lobo from the post was made by the party's Goa desk in-charge Dinesh Gundu Rao here late Sunday evening, on the eve of the assembly session.

The development comes amid speculation that some Congress MLAs may cross over to the saffron party. Exactly three years ago on this day, a group of 10 MLAs from the Congress had left the party and switched over to the BJP.

The development also comes close on the heels of the political turmoil in neighbouring Maharashtra, where the ruling Shiv Sena split following a rebellion by senior leader Eknath Shinde, who became the chief minister after Uddhav Thackeray resigned from the top post in the last week of June.

Shinde and his supporting MLAs had gone "incommunicado" on June 20-21 before moving to Surat and then to Guwahati.