Six Cong MLAs threaten to quit, Alva rushed to Goa
Saturday February 5 2005 00:00 IST
PANAJI: With the two-day-old Pratapsingh Rane
government facing trouble from within the Congress,
the party on Friday rushed its general secretary in
charge of Goa Margaret Alva to Panaji.
Her mission: to pacify angry Congress MLAs who
threatened to resign their seats in the Goa assembly.
Six of the 15 Congress MLAs, unhappy over the cabinet,
have threatened to quit and reduce the Pratapsingh
Rane government to a minority.
The Congress-led coalition with 18 MLAs enjoys a
narrow majority of just one MLA in the 40-member
house. Four MLAs from the BJP had quit last week
triggering off the chain of events which led to the
fall of the Manohar Parrikar government.
According to sources, the rebel Congress group
includes party spokesman Jitendra Deshprabhu, Cuncolim
MLA Joaquim Alemao, Lutolim MLA Alexio Sequiera and
Agnelo Rodrigues and two others. After they threatened
to send their resignations to the Speaker, Alva was
rushed to Goa.
All of them are unhappy at not being included in
Rane's cabient. Only former Chief Minister Luizinho
Faleiro and MLA Dayanand Narvekar of the Congress were
inducted on Thursday while the rest came from allies.
Governor S C Jamir had to delay the swearing-in
yesterday of the new cabinet ministers by an hour as
Rane could not decide who to include and who to keep
out.
In the end, Rane got the Governor's office to despatch
a hurried appointment order inducting Luizinho Faleiro
and Dayanand Narvekar into his team. Chief Minister
Rane has decided not to allocate portfolios to his
team to prevent further damage to his fragile
coalition.
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