Goa Congress president Girish Chodankar says party is yet to decide
whether it wants to stake claim to form government and ask for time to prove majority.
Mumbai: With B.S. Yeddyurappa taking oath as Karnataka chief minister Thursday, the Congress has decided to meet Goa governor Mridula Sinha to learn why the same principle of inviting the single largest party cannot be followed in her state.
The governor will meet a delegation of 16 Congress MLAs at 12 noon Friday to hear out their memorandum of demands.
The grand old party is, however, yet to decide if it wants to stake claim to form the government in Goa and ask for time to prove its strength on the floor, leaders said.
“We have sought an appointment with governor Mridula Sinha. We are yet to hear from the governor’s office though,” Goa Congress president Girish Chodankar told ThePrint.
“Our basic grouse is that two governors of two states cannot take different stands. There has to be one common practice,” he added.
Demand for uniform norms
Chodankar argued that if the Karnataka governor can invite the BJP — the single largest party — to form the government despite not having the absolute majority, the Goa governor should also have invited the Congress for the same.
He, however, added that the party hasn’t decided yet on whether it wants to lay claim on forming the government in Goa with its 16 MLAs or ask for time to prove its majority.
“We have an internal meeting in the evening to decide on what is to be done,” said Chodankar who recently took over as Goa Congress chief.
The move comes at a time when Goa chief minister Manohar Parrikar has been away for medical treatment for over two months, leaving the state without an active CM and making everyone from the allies to the opposition members restless.
“We will see what the governor’s response is and act accordingly. The current government is anyway shaky,” Chandrakant Kavlekar, leader of opposition in Goa, told ThePrint.
“Alliance partners of the BJP here have not been completely happy and now more so with the CM not being here,” Kavlekar said.
The Congress has been demanding a “permanent CM” for Goa in Parrikar’s absence. “We did not receive any response (from the governor) on that demand. Hopefully, this time at least, we will get some response,” Kavlekar added.
Single largest party not invited to form govt
The BJP had last year cobbled up a post-poll alliance with regional parties such as the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party and Goa Forward Party besides bringing in independents to form the government in the 40-member assembly.
The BJP got 12 seats while Congress emerged as the single-largest party with 16 MLAs. But the governor did not invite the latter to form the government.
Following the BJP’s precedent in Goa and later in Manipur, the Congress in Karnataka also entered into a post-poll alliance with the Janata Dal (S) despite not being the single-largest party, and requested Karnataka governor Vajubhai Vala to allow it to form the government.
The Karnataka governor, however, invited BJP’s B.S. Yeddyurappa to take oath as CM and allowed BJP to form the government as the single-largest party with 104 seats in the 224-member House.
The Congress and Janata Dal (S) together showed a strength of 117 legislators with the support of one MLA from the Bahujan Samaj Party and one independent, crossing the half-way mark.