With several leaders of the Congress in Goa under the police scanner, the opposition party today termed the investigations as a "pressure tactic" being adopted by the BJP-led state government to "threaten" its MLAs into joining the ruling party.
A string of Congress leaders, including former chief ministers Digambar Kamat and Pratapsinh Rane, opposition leader Chandrakant Kavlekar, Ravi Naik, and former state unit president Luizinho Faleiro, are facing probes in various cases.
While inquiry is on against Kamat in an alleged mining scam, Naik is being probed in connection with an alleged policemen-drug paddler nexus, Rane and Faleiro in an SEZ scam, and Nilkant Halarnkar for alleged irregularities in selling of Housing Board properties.
The state Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) recently registered an FIR against Kavlekar for allegedly amassing assets disproportionate to his known sources of income and for his alleged links with 'matka' gambling.
"It is ample clear that one by one our MLAs are being targetted by the state government. This is nothing but a pressure tactic being adopted by them to threaten our MLAs to join them," Goa Congress unit president Shantaram Naik told reporters here today.
Responding to a query, he said the common people are well aware about how the BJP is targetting the Congress leaders.
"I don't have to tell who are those MLAs who are being targeted. Everyone knows that," he said.
He said the charges against Kavlekar are "politically motivated and malicious".
"However, the law will take its own course," he said.
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