5 Goa Cong MLAs attend Assembly session after going incommunicado; claim nothing is wrong

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.

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.

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.

Talking to reporters outside the Assembly complex, Kamat said he was very much with the Congress.

"I met Dinesh Gundu Rao on Saturday. I told him that I am hurt because of the humiliation that I faced in the party," the former CM said, adding that rumours of him joining the BJP were floating since 2017.

"I stayed with the Congress. I led the party from front during the Assembly election (earlier this year), but after the polls, I was not given the post of leader of opposition," Kamat added.

MLA Rajesh Faldesai also said he was with the party and had informed Goa Congress chief Amit Patkar about his absence (from the party office on Sunday), as he was at home due to personal reasons.

Faldesai said rumours were being spread that he met Chief Minister Pramod Sawant on Sunday.

Before the commencement of the Assembly session, a senior Congress leader said they had moved five other MLAs, who were with the party, to an undisclosed location, to avoid a 'split' in the outfit and that they will attend the session.