Digvijaya should now take retirement from politics, says Vishwajit Rane

In a series of tweets, Digvijaya defended his way of handling party affairs in Goa and said the party is going raise the issue in Parliament and submit a petition to the President of India on the conduct of Goa governor Mridula Sinha. “By 3.30pm (on March 12), we had decided on our leader and were trying to contact Vijay Sardesai (of Goa Forward), who had promised support to us at midnight (March 11)”, Singh said on Friday.

“A delegation of leaders in Goa told me that it is not appropriate for (Manohar) Parrikar to come back to Goa after quitting the Defence Ministry”. Did she hear it from anybody in the Congress?

“How we lost Goa was stupid”, she said.

In an interview with Mumbai Mirror, Governor Sinha said that “didn’t expect the BJP to form the government”.

Pro-tem Speaker Sidharth Kunkolienkar, who was appointed to the position from a pool of 17 BJP MLAs, asked the legislators to vote, even as former Speaker and Congress MLA Pratapsingh Rane wanted to raise a point of order, which was disallowed. On the other hand, BJP held a video-conferencing with their leaders in Delhi and within no time they cobbled up an alliance.

Flush with the stupendous victory in the politically crucial state of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, the BJP may be rejoicing at having checkmated the Congress in both Manipur and Goa through a mixture of backroom deal-making and downright political chicanery despite emerging second best in the elections.

He claimed the Congress promptly elected the Legislative Party leader after it won 28 of the 60 seats and emerged as the single-largest party for the fourth time in a row.

Anand Sharma (Cong) said the Constitution clearly defines the duties and powers of Governor in appointing chief minister and it does not anywhere state that the Governor is supposed to consult serving cabinet minister.

A Congress leader, on the request for anonymity, narrated how BJP leader Nitin Gadkari reached out to other stakeholders seeking support while Congress was busy fighting over their chief ministerial candidate.

It alleged that the Governors in the two states, which in the recently concluded assembly elections threw up a hung assembly with Congress being the single largest party, were “acting at the behest” of the Centre. Many MLAs have complained about Singh and want him divested of the state’s charge. “For an aspiring politician like me, it would make no sense to join a weak party which can’t take simple decisions”.