Congress leaders from Goa shifted to Chennai ahead of Presidential polls. Detail here
Premium- The Congress MLAs who have been shifted include Sankalp Amonkar, Yuri Alemao, Altone D'Costa, Rudolf Fernandes and Carlose Alvares Ferreira.
Five out of its 11 MLAs in Goa have been shifted to Chennai ahead of the Presidential elections, which are scheduled to be held on 18 July. The MLAs who have been shifted include Sankalp Amonkar, Yuri Alemao, Altone D'Costa, Rudolf Fernandes and Carlose Alvares Ferreira.
"All these MLAs flew to Chennai directly after the session got over on Friday," a senior Congress leader said, adding that they would return to Goa directly to participate in the presidential polls to be held on Monday.
Meanwhile, six other MLAs of the opposition party - former chief minister Digambar Kamat, Michael Lobo, Delialah Lobo, Kedar Naik, Aleixo Sequeira and Rajesh Faldesai - are not part of the group.
When Michael Lobo was contacted to comment on the matter, he told news agency PTI, "I was not invited. I don't know why they were taken to Chennai."
Last Sunday, the Congress had removed Michael Lobo from the post of Leader of Opposition in the Assembly, accusing him and Kamat of conspiring against the party and "hobnobbing with the BJP" to engineer a split in the the party's state legislative wing.
The party had said the five MLAs, including Lobo and Kamat, had gone incommunicado. However, these MLAs attended the Goa Assembly proceedings on the first day of its monsoon session on Monday and claimed there was nothing wrong and that they were with the party.
On Tuesday, 10 out of the total 11 MLAs had attended a meeting chaired by senior leader Mukul Wasnik. Goa Pradesh Congress Committee President Amit Patkar has filed a disqualification petition against Kamat and Lobo before the Assembly Speaker. Polls to elect the next president will be held on July 18.
The race for the Rashtrapati Bhavan is between National Democratic Alliance's (NDA) Droupadi Murmu and the joint opposition's candidate Yashwant Sinha.
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