Goa Speaker says he has accepted merger of state Congress Legislature Party into BJP

Goa Assembly Speaker Ramesh Tawadkar on Thursday said he had accepted the merger of the state Congress Legislature Party (CLP) into the ruling BJP. He went through a letter submitted by Congress MLAs and found that they have required numbers, he told reporters. Eight out of 11 Congress MLAs on Wednesday passed a resolution to merge the legislature party into the BJP.

In swift developments on Wednesday, Congress MLAs including former Congress chief minister Digambar Kamat, Michael Lobo, his wife Delilah Lobo, Rajesh Phaldesai, Kedar Naik, Sankalp Amonkar, Aleixo Sequeira and Rudolf Fernandes passed a resolution deciding to merge with the BJP and submitted it to the Goa Assembly Speaker. They later met Goa Chief Minister Pramod Sawant who welcomed them into the party.

The Congress was so stunned at the pace of developments that they were not even able to comment whether the eight MLAs joining the BJP was legal or not.


On Wednesday, when Kamat was asked about the Congress MLAs like him swearing before God that they would not join BJP, Kamat justified it by saying, "I again went to God and I told him about the situation (in the Congress)... He said "you take whatever decision; I am with you." Kamat also said that the affidavits signed by them earlier to not quit the party had no 'legal' value.