Congress lambasts BJP’s ‘delay’ in forming government in Goa

  Many MLAs across party lines have urged Congress to take the lead, says Digambar Kamat

Accusing the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of dragging its feet over forming the new government in Goa, the Congress on Friday alleged that the saffron party, by not staking claim even a week after the declaration of results, should publicly admit its inability to form the next government.

Hinting that the Congress may have covert support from some BJP MLAs, senior Congress leader and ex-Goa Chief Minister Digambar Kamat said that a number of MLAs across party lines had approached the Congress to take lead in forming the government.

“The Congress party is open for all options to ensure that a non-BJP government is formed in Goa that will uphold the verdict of the Assembly polls,” Mr. Kamat said, speaking to reporters in Panaji.

The Congress leader observed that the BJP’s vote share of 33% proved that the majority 66% of the Goan electorate was against it.

Remarking that the Assembly results were “clearly against the 10-year misrule of the BJP”, he said that the split in Opposition votes had helped the BJP reach its tally of 20 seats.

“But this is not the majority number. While the Congress accepted the people’s mandate with the utmost humility, we expected the BJP to move ahead and form the government within two or three days of the results. However, it has failed to do so and appears to be merely buying time. It is loud and clear [that] all is not well in BJP,” Mr. Kamat, who won the Margao Assembly seat for the seventh time by a huge margin of 8,000 votes, said.

In the results to the 40-seat Goa Assembly election declared on March 10, the BJP won a decisive 20 of the 40 Assembly seats to emerge as the single-largest party, while the Congress won just 11 and its ally, the Goa Forward Party (GFP), won one. The BJP claimed it had the unconditional support of three independent candidates as well as two MLAs of the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) that had allied with the Trinamool Congress in the election.