Babush & Co denies truck with Congress rebels, stands by Kamat
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PANAJI: With the ‘group of seven’ declaring on Thursday that they had no
problems with the chief minister and that they were only seeking
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“administrative reforms”, only the Congress dissidents were left demanding
Digambar Kamat’s ouster.
With only four MLAs—Pandurang Madkaikar, Pratap Gauns, Aleixo Reginaldo
Lourenco and Dayanand Narvekar— turning up for a meeting at Mapusa on Thursday,
the dissidents had to put off their conclave once again. They will now meet on
Saturday.
They had earlier postponed their meeting from Wednesday to Thursday to enable
more MLAs to attend. Congress president Subash Shirodkar, who returned from
Delhi with Kamat on Thursday evening, clearly indicated that there would be no
change in leadership.
Although unacknowledged, the Congress high command is learnt to have played a
major role in quelling the rebellion by sending a stern message to both sets of
rebels. When contacted in Delhi, AICC general secretary in charge of Goa B K
Hariprasad refused to acknowledge the crisis.
“No reports have come. No MLA has spoken to us. We cannot comment on media
reports. No, we are not sending any emissary to Goa,” he said. But despite
this, Madkaikar said, “We still demand a change in leadership and have
postponed our meeting to Saturday to enable more Congress MLAs to attend.”
On the other hand, two prominent ‘G-7’ leaders—education minister Atanasio
Monserrate and transport minister Ramkrishna Dhavalikar—said they had never
demanded a leadership change and that they fully backed the Kamat government.
They claimed they only wanted administrative reforms.
The group of seven comprises NCP MLAs Jose Philip D’Souza, Francisco Pacheco
and Nilkanth Harlankar; MGP MLAs Ramkrishna and Deepak Dhavalikar besides
Monserrate and Vishwajit Rane. Amid reports of the CBI filing its chargesheet
against him in the Panaji police station attack case, Monserrate told TOI, “We
have no right to demand a leadership change in the Congress. Our problem is the
administration. Things are going slow, files are stuck.
Sometimes, even when the finance minister clears our files, they get stuck with
the joint secretary of finance. We have no issue with the CM, only with the
finances.” The group’s reconciliatory stance was first announced by Dhavalikar
to TOI in his chamber at the secretariat earlier in the day. “It was just a
coincidence that the seven of us met at my bungalow at Altinho on Tuesday. We
only discussed about streamlining the administration. We never demanded a
change in the leadership or anything else.”
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