A day after firefighting in Goa to maintain its flock collectively, leaders of the Congress, off the file, described the “Operation Lotus” the ruling BJP allegedly tried. Sources mentioned the BJP had a chartered flight prepared to maneuver six Congress MLAs out of Goa — all of the MLAs had been incommunicado on Sunday, setting alarm bells ringing in Panaji and Delhi. The ruling BJP has denied allegations of involvement. “The BJP has nothing to do with no matter is occurring within the Congress social gathering,” mentioned social gathering spokesman Yatish Naik.
A prime BJP chief, sources within the Congress mentioned, was personally in contact with the Congress MLAs. The MLAs, sources mentioned, have been provided large sums of cash — Rs 15 crore to Rs 20 crore — to defect to the BJP. However the plan was lastly dropped because the numbers didn’t add up, the sources mentioned.
To keep away from the anti-defection legislation, there ought to be two-thirds of the Congress MLAs altering sides. With the social gathering having 11 MLAs, there ought to have been a minimum of eight MLAs able to cross over.
The Congress had reacted rapidly to the disaster, sacking its Chief of Opposition Michael Lobo and publicly accusing its former Chief Minister Digambar Kamat of “conspiring” in opposition to his personal social gathering. The social gathering has additionally requested the meeting Speaker to disqualify two of its MLAs — Digambar Kamat and Michael Lobo — disqualified underneath the anti-defection legislation.
Congress’s Goa desk in cost Dinesh Gundu Rao alleged that Michael Lobo and Digambar Kamat have been “hatching a conspiracy by hobnobbing with the BJP to engineer a break up within the Congress”.
“They (the BJP) need that there be no opposition within the nation. They wish to break the opposition. They wish to supress the voice of opposition. That was their try,” Congress’s state unit chief Amit Patkar informed NDTV in an unique interview.
“We’ve got tried our degree finest to foil their try… Their operation failed in Goa. Now they’ll deny that they have been concerned in it. However in 2019, they tried the identical factor. However this time, they weren’t profitable,” he added.
The disaster within the opposition Congress in Goa comes on the heels of the massive political disaster in Maharashtra that noticed the collapse of the Uddhav Thackeray authorities and the set up of the Eknath Shinde-BJP mix.
The lacking MLAs turned up immediately for the meeting session, insisting that each one was effectively they usually had gone to south Goa for a gathering.
“There may be nothing mistaken. I don’t know what’s the drawback. All Congress MLAs have been collectively. We went to South Goa for a gathering on Sunday. They (Congress leaders) once more wished to have one other press convention which was not required, so we didn’t attend it,” mentioned Michael Lobo, whose spouse Delialah Lobo can also be a Congress MLA.
Late this night, Mr Lobo, reiterated: “There may be some misunderstanding. i’ll go and clarify… We’ve got attended all of the press conferences. There can’t be so many press conferences to elucidate your place… I believe folks will get confused”.
