Congress leaders, including party’s chief whip in the Rajya Sabha Satyavrat Chaturvedi, on Tuesday criticised the delay in garnering support from other MLAs in Goa where it lost out to the Bharatiya Janata Party in the race to form government despite emerging as the single largest party.
They also demanded that accountability be fixed for not being able to form the government after the party squandered the opportunity to return to power in the coastal state.
The strong reaction came a day after a group of party’s Goa legislators blamed the central leadership for failure to form the government.
Asserting that the party knew that it did not have a clear majority and therefore, it has to garner support from other political parties or may be Independents, Chaturvedi said, “This exercise should have been conducted well in time.”
Another Congress leader and former union minister Renuka Chowdhury said the mandate was given to the party and it was natural for its MLAs to feel bitter about not being able to form the government.
“Accountability should be fixed and heads should roll for Goa as well as for other states,” she added.
However, Chaturvedi maintained that the final verdict will be after the floor test in the Goa assembly.
“That will decide one's majority, not the Governor’s House,” Chaturvedi told reporters outside Parliament.
On Monday, a group of Congress legislators in Goa blamed the party’s top leadership for the failure to form the government in the coastal state despite emerging as the single largest party in the assembly polls.
“I am very upset with the way our party leaders handled the situation after the (Goa assembly poll) results, which gave us the first right -- as the single largest party -- to form the government.
“I feel let down at the functioning of the party leaders who could not take a decision at the right time,” Vishwajit Rane, who won from the Valpoi constituency, had said.
He said that ‘gross mismanagement’ by party leaders and the ‘delay’ in choosing the Congress Legislature Party leader hurt them.
In the recently held assembly elections in Goa, BJP bagged 13 seats, while Congress got 17 seats in the 40-member house. However, BJP staked claim to form the government on the basis of support from eight other MLAs.
Goa Governor Governor Mridula Sinha had invited Manohar Parrikar to form the government after he produced the letter of support of 21 MLAs. Parrikar was on Tuesday sworn in as chief minister of Goa.
