The Congress appears to have averted a possible split in its legislative wing in Goa for the time being as on Monday, 11 July, it claimed the support of seven of the 11 party MLAs in the Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled state which saw Assembly polls just four months ago.
A day after five out of the 11 MLAs went incommunicado, Goa Congress chief Amit Patkar said the number of MLAs with the party has risen to seven – two more than the Sunday's count – and the party has also sought disqualification of its senior MLAs Michael Lobo and Digambar Kamat.
This comes after five Congress MLAs, namely Lobo, Kamat, Kedar Naik, Rajesh Faldesai, and Delilah Lobo had gone incommunicado on Sunday.
Patkar said, "Disqualification petitions have been filed against both the MLAs as they have voluntarily given up membership of the party."
He added that the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) efforts to split the Congress had failed and alleged that the saffron party wanted to gain "muscle power" as "they have done in Maharashtra" but could not do so without attracting anti-defection law provisions, as per PTI.