Amid chanting of ‘Congress Todo, BJP Jodo’, eight Congress MLAs, including former Goa CM Digambar Kamat and Leader of Opposition Michael Lobo on Wednesday joined the ruling BJP.
The other MLAs who have joined are Delilah Lobo, Rajesh Phaldesai, Kedar Naik, Sankalp Amonkar, Aleixo Sequeira and Rudolf Fernandes. They joined BJP after meeting with Chief Minister Pramod Sawant at the Goa Assembly complex during the day.
The MLAs will not attract disqualification under the Anti-Defection Law as two-thirds of the Congress MLAs have defected. The Congress has 11 MLAs in the state assembly. For Congress, the embarrassing setback came at a time when Rahul Gandhi is holding a Bharat Jodo Yatra
Commenting on the development, Delhi Chief Minister and Aam Aadmi Party national convenor Arvind Kejriwal reacted to the eight Congress MLAs joining Bharatiya Janata Party in Goa and alleged it was the former’s fault for not being able to save its MLAs in the country.
“BJP is breaking MLAs by giving crores of rupees to them across the country in the name of Operation Lotus, this is wrong. But the fault is also of Congress,” Kejriwal said addressing a press conference in the national capital. “They could not break our MLAs in Delhi-Punjab because we expose them, but Congress has failed to save its MLAs,” he added.