Coalition partners opportunistic: Trojan

PANAJI: The Goa Pradesh Congress Committee (GPCC) has strongly condemned the coalition government and said the alliance partners have exposed their political leadership and failed in their promise which they had made to the people by supporting Manohar Parrikar and not the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to form government after the 2017 assembly election.

The party has described the alliance between the Goa Forward Party, Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party and the Independent MLAs as ‘opportunistic’ and ‘unethical’ to agree to support BJP’s Pramod Sawant as new chief minister to retain the government.

Addressing a press conference here on Tuesday, GPCC spokesperson Trojan D’mello said people of the state have now realised that the alliance partners have failed to remain faithful to the promises they made after the 2017 election that they will support Parrikar and not the BJP.

“The so-called secular parties will suffer, as people are annoyed with them after watching the entire episode till late Monday night on a hard bargain with BJP to sustain the government. It is an opportunistic and unethical alliance. It reflects no stability. The proposed alliance is outright transactional, lacks credibility and will not last. Their communal colour has been exposed to the people. The common minimum programme of a coalition government has turned into common money making programme,” he said. He also accused the Governor of allowing BJP to carry on with horse-trading till late Monday night to finalise chief ministerial candidate after hectic negotiations with the two alliance partners and Independents to ensure the party retained the government. He criticised the Governor for not giving even a single opportunity to the Congress party, despite it being the single largest party, to stake claim despite repeated requests.

“There was no government for 30 hours following the death of chief minister Manohar Parrikar on Sunday. It was a constitutional breakdown by Governor, who remained a mute spectator and allowed a vacuum in the government,” he said.

To a question as to why the Congress party did not approach court and waited for the Governor’s call for the last three days, D’mello said, “We didn’t have strong factors to approach court, so we waited. The court could have ruled strictly on technical grounds which would not be in our favour. However, the legal cell of the party is yet to decide on the legal steps to be taken.”

He also challenged the new Chief Minister to take the floor test after distributing the portfolios. “If the portfolios are distributed before the floor test then it will naturally go against the deal and demands made by the alliance partners to support BJP candidature,” he said.