Backing government till now, further decision after April 7, says Sudin

PANAJI: A decision over whether MGP would continue to extend support to the BJP-led government will be taken after April 7, alliance partner and senior MGP functionary Ramkrishna ‘Sudin’ Dhavalikar said on Tuesday.
The former deputy chief minister, who was unceremoniously sacked from the cabinet by chief minister Pramod Sawant, said that as of date, his party continues to extend support to the coalition government and remains a part of the regime.
Last week, in the wee hours of Wednesday, BJP engineered a split in MGP and inducted two of its three MLAs. Tourism minister Manohar Azgaonkar and Sanvordem MLA Deepak Pauskar, who joined BJP, were appointed deputy chief minister and PWD minister, respectively.
“We have to think a lot when giving any party a letter of support. Did they (BJP) tell us why they split MGP? BJP says we would have toppled their government. When I have signed the letter of support, how will I topple the government? We have always supported them. As of today we support them,” Sudin said, adding that on March 18, before handing the letter of support to Union minister Nitin Gadkari, he had taken Azgaonkar and Pauskar’s signatures. “Where then is the question of withdrawing support within a week of the new government formation?”
Reacting to Sawant’s statement that Sudin had assured Gadkari that MGP chief Pandurang ‘Deepak’ Dhavalikar would not contest the Shiroda byelection, the former deputy CM said he did no such thing. He said he had in fact told Gadkari that he was ready to resign from the cabinet if Deepak did not withdraw his nomination on April 7. The last day of withdrawal of nominations is April 8.
During negotiations seeking consensus from alliance partners for Sawant as CM, BJP drove a hard bargain. Sudin was told to withdraw MGP’s candidate from Shiroda if he wanted to continue in the cabinet and be made deputy chief minister.