Former Goa Chief Minister and Congress legislator Luizinho Faleiro on Tuesday blamed senior leader Digvijaya Singh for the party’s failure to form a government in the state in 2017 despite being the single largest party, The Hindu reported.
The Congress had won 17 of 40 seats in the 2017 Assembly elections. The Bharatiya Janata Party, which had won 13 seats, formed the government in coalition with smaller parties. After defections and a death, the Congress now has 14 MLAs and the BJP is back at 13.
Faleiro told the media at Navelim, his Assembly constituency, that Singh had stopped him from submitting a letter to the Goa governor to stake claim to form the government with a Congress-led alliance. Singh was the general secretary in charge of Goa, while Faleiro was the Congress state unit’s chief.
“When Digvijay Singh did not allow, I as a protest resigned from the PCC [Pradesh Congress Committee],” Faleiro said. “I had as a protest refused to take the leadership of Congress Legislative Party to become the Leader of Opposition. I had refused, even though I had the highest number of votes, nearly 12 to 13 votes out of 17 [Congress MLAs],” Faleiro said. He is currently in charge of organisational and political affairs in the North East states.
Faleiro said the Congress had promised to form the government within 24 hours. “Now 24 months have passed, but I still have patience for our party to form government,” The Indian Express quoted him as saying. “But I have not interfered, I will not interfere, nor do I want to contest the elections.”
When asked about Faleiro’s comments, Singh told The Indian Express that he did not want to add anything more than his tweet. However, he has not tweeted on the matter yet.
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