Who prevented 2/3rd split of Congress in Goa?

New Delhi: The Congress Legislature Party (CLP) in Goa would have been history had a tip-off not come from an unexpected quarter.

NewsDrum has exclusive details of the developments in the Goa Congress that saw five legislators defect from the party. 

The CLP would have been non-existent by now had Goa Forward Party (GFP) chief Vijay Sardesai not alerted the Congress leadership of a possible coup led by Congress Legislature Party Leader and Leader of the Opposition (LoP) Michael Lobo and fully supported by the veteran leader and Congress Working Committee (CWC) member Digambar Kamat. 

Sardesai in turn was alerted by a senior BJP minister who informed him about Lobo's machinations. 

All India Congress Committee (AICC) in charge of Goa affairs Dinesh Gundu Rao had no clue of the exodus. 

Sardesai, who had an axe to grind with the BJP and chief minister Pramod Sawant in particular, on his own began a counter-offensive to prevent the ruling party from poaching all Congress legislators. 

In 2017, it was Sardesai who had supported the BJP to form its government in Goa despite the Congress being the single largest party in the 40-member assembly. His party was then backed by the Congress but he ditched it to support his arch-rival and former defence minister Manohar Parrikar in becoming the chief minister.

After Parrikar’s death, Sardesai continued to support his successor Sawant and in return was elevated as the deputy chief minister along with Sudhin Dhavalikar of the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP).

However, Sardesai was sacked as the deputy chief minister in July 2019 after ten Congress legislators, including its CLP leader Chandrakant Kavlekar, defected to the BJP.

Since then, Sardesai is keen to avenge his unceremonious sacking and was in fact ready to merge his GFP into the Congress provided he and not Lobo was named the LoP.

Out of the total 11 legislators, five, including Lobo, his wife Delilah and Kamat, are said to have agreed to jump ship. 

The Congress leadership accused Lobo and Kamat of hatching a conspiracy to engineer a 2/3rd split in the CLP by allegedly hobnobbing with the BJP. The party high command later removed Lobo as the CLP leader from the Goa Congress. 

It is widely believed that BJP’s second-highest minister Vishwajit Rane had alerted Sardesai about Lobo's operation. 

Just before the elections in February this year, Lobo had resigned as a minister in the BJP government and joined the Congress, which also gave a ticket to his wife Delilah and former Saligao BJP leader Kedar Naik, a Lobo loyalist. 

Ever since the BJP assumed power for a third consecutive term and Rane was once again made a minister, Lobo has been his key target. As Town & Country Planning Minister, Rane had launched a crackdown on Lobo's many properties and how they were given development permissions while as FDA Minister Rane got Lobo’s restaurant shut down, pushing him to the wall. Lobo approached the chief minister to save him from Rane's wrath and promised him that he will work to ensure that the CLP merges with the BJP to cut down Rane to size and put Sawant in a comfort zone. 

Rane, however, had other plans. It is well known in Goa political circles that Rane has been eyeing the Chief Minister’s position and has been doing everything to show that it is only he who can cut the Congress to size.

Lobo interestingly was given a ministerial berth as a BJP legislator by the chief minister himself. Lobo moving two-thirds of the Congress party would decimate and even marginalise Rane’s position in the BJP. 

In this face-off between Rane and Sawant, Lobo is the pawn and Congress - the casualty. 

But the fact that Sardesai had to step in and prevent a complete merger of the CLP in the BJP says a lot about Rao's style of functioning. Till the last minute, the high-flying Rao, under whose watch the Congress lost Puducherry and Goa, had no idea what was happening in his party.

Congress president Sonia Gandhi has now rushed senior leader Mukul Wasnik to oversee the latest developments in the party.