Congress strategy focuses on staking claim and breaking alliance partners

PANAJI: While Congress made several overt attempts to form the next state government by meeting Goa governor Mridula Sinha, the party focused its back channel talks with some of the party allies to try and break up the MGP and Goa Forward Party (GFP) alliance with the saffron party and thus stall the BJP’s attempts to swear in a new chief minister, party sources said.
Opposition leader Chandrakant Kavlekar, along with party MLAs and senior party functionaries, went to Raj Bhavan and met Sinha twice on Monday, where they strongly urged her to ensure that Congress was given a chance to form the state government before any attempt was made to put the state under President’s rule.
However, as the day drew on and even as the BJP struggled to cobble up an alliance and swear in a new CM, Sinha refused to entertain the Congress claim. This forced the Congress to say that the party would “go all out to challenge” Sinha’s decision including “legal options”.
“We have conveyed to you several times that ours is the single largest party in the legislative assembly of Goa with a strength of 14 MLAs in the house of 36 members. As such, I am entitled to receive your invitation to form the government consequent upon the sad demise of Manohar Parrikar,” said Kavlekar in yet another letter to the governor.
Kavlekar said that he had the support of a majority of the elected members of the house and was “therefore confident of winning the motion of confidence” if Sinha gave the Congress a chance.
Political sources said that the Congress was engaged in hectic discussions with various members of the BJP-led coalition government to try and either woo some of them over to the Congress or as an interim measure, stall the swearing in process.
“She (governor) is left with no option because we are the single largest party,” said state Congress president Girish Chodankar.
Later, when Kavlekar was asked if the options included a petition before the judiciary, he said that the party’s legal cell was already working on a legal line of action.
However, behind the scenes, influential Congress functionaries were working on moves to break the alliance partners. “The party only stands a chance to form the state government if the allies exit the coalition. And the only way for allies to exit the BJP-led coalition is for the talks with the BJP to fail,” said a Congress official.