Goa: 8 Congress MLAs set to join BJP, says Sadanand Shet Tanavade; list

Eight Congress MLAs in Goa are set to join the ruling BJP, the state's BJP unit chief Sadanand Shet Tanavade said on Wednesday. The Congress currently has 11 MLAs whereas the BJP has 20.

In Goa Assembly, which is 40 strong, 21 is the majority mark.

According to the news agency ANI, Digambar Kamat, Michael Lobo, Delilah Lobo, Rajesh Phaldesai, Kedar Naik, Sankalp Amonkar, Aleixo Sequeira and Rudolf Fernandes will join the BJP. 

In July this year, the Congress said Michael Lobo and Digambar Kamat -- two of its towering leaders in Goa -- tried to engineer defections of Congress MLAs to BJP.

The party had said the BJP wanted to gather two-thirds of the Congress MLAs' in order to evade the anti-defection law but failed. It said the BJP had offered money to its MLAs to shift loyalty.

Congress had also lost touch with five of its MLAs, including Lobo, Kamat, Kedar Naik, Rajesh Faldesai and Delialah Lobo.

The party then sacked Lobo as the Leader of the Opposition. Sonia Gandhi appointed Mukul Wasnik to tackle the crisis. 

In 2019, the party's 10 of 15 MLAs defected to the BJP. 

(With inputs from PTI)