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Luizinho Faleiro will return as Goa CM

Sandesh Prabhudesai in Panjim

Luizinho Faleiro, ex-chief minister and president of the Goa Pradesh Congress Committee, has been elected leader of the Congress Legislature Party to head the Goa government.

The Congress won a wafer-thin majority of one in the 40-member assembly in the recently concluded elections.

Faleiro will take over as chief minister after the Union Cabinet revokes President's rule and the Election Commission completes other necessary formalities. He will also step down as Goa PCC chief.

Faleiro was selected by party chief Sonia Gandhi after the newly elected CLP unanimously resolved to empower her to select the leader late this evening.

Earlier, the views of all the MLAs-elect were heard by central leaders Manmohan Singh and Madhavrao Scindia.

Faleiro's name was then proposed by former chief minister Pratapsing Rane and seconded by two other former chief ministers, Ravi Naik and Churchill Alemao.

Singh, announcing the result at a press conference, said Faleiro was elected unanimously while there was also a broad consensus about him when they met the legislators personally through the day at a city hotel.

He, however, declined to disclose who the other contenders were.

Sources said that while Rane and Naik were also in the race, it was Gandhi's wish that the person who led the state Congress to the polls should become the leader. That changed the whole equation.

The confusion over the strength of the Cabinet still persists, though Scindia asserted that the party would abide by its commitment to keep it to 15 per cent of the strength of the House.

But in the same breath, he said the number could increase to eight, which becomes 20 per cent of the House's strength.

Dayanand Narvekar, a former minister, had earlier in the morning demanded that the Congress should make all 11 legislators who have been elected consecutively twice earlier ministers as "people demand too much from the MLAs".

Talking to reporters, Faleiro said he had not fully applied his mind to the matter. He also declined to give any commitment on inducting at least one woman from among the two elected as legislators.

Asked whether the Congress planned to "strengthen" its legislature party further since it may not be able to survive with a wafer-thin majority for long, Scindia said they would not mind admitting anybody who has no major ideological differences with the party and has a secular outlook.

There are at least two regional outfits, the Goa Rajiv Congress and the United Goans Democratic Party, fulfilling these criteria. Both have two MLAs each.

EARLIER REPORT:
Faleiro elected Goa CLP leader

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