Five Goa Congress MLAs, who went incommunicado a day before, attended the state Assembly proceedings on the first day of the monsoon session on Monday, and claimed there was “nothing wrong” in the opposition party.
On Sunday, out of the total 11 Congress MLAs in the state, five — Michael Lobo, Digambar Kamat, Kedar Naik, Rajesh Faldesai and Delialah Lobo — had gone incommunicado, a senior party leader earlier said.
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Thursday 06 Feb. 2025
The Congress subsequently removed Lobo from the post of Leader of Opposition in the 40-member state Assembly. Congress’s Goa desk in-charge Dinesh Gundu Rao had alleged that “Lobo and Kamat were hatching a conspiracy by hobnobbing with the BJP to engineer a split in the Congress.”
Talking to reporters on Monday, Lobo claimed there was nothing wrong in the party. “There is nothing wrong. I don’t know what is the problem. All Congress MLAs were together. We went to South Goa for a meeting on Sunday.
“They (Congress leaders) again wanted to have another press conference which was not required, so we did not attend it,” said Lobo, whose wife Delialah is also a Congress MLA.
Lobo said they won the state election on the Congress’s ticket and they stand with the party. On replacing him as the leader of opposition, Lobo said he had told the party that he was not interested to continue as the LoP.
Said GPCC president Amit Patkar, “I’ve submitted the letter to the Speaker regarding the resolution of CLP meeting to remove CLP leader (Michael Lobo). Our new CLP leader will be finalized by today and we will submit the same… we have 6 MLAs with us and one more is expected.”
Former chief minister Digambar Kamat and his Congress colleague Rajesh Faldesai also said they were with the party. The two Congress MLAs said they were not in the party office on Sunday due to personal commitments.
