Digambar Kamat and Ramesh Tawadkar — whose careers saw them in, out of, and back in BJP — sworn in as new Goa ministers

The Cabinet berth marks a political resurrection for Kamat, who was first elected as an MLA on a BJP ticket more than three decades ago in 1994. He later joined the Congress and was among the group of eight ‘turncoat’ MLAs who switched over to the BJP from the Congress in September 2022. He served as the chief minister of Goa from 2007 to 2012, the last Congress government in the state.

Kamat said he got an opportunity to become a minister after a gap of 13 years. “I am returning to the Cabinet after 13 years. I am happy that I will get the strength to work for the common man. This will allow me to work for the people and help strengthen the party. God, the central leadership, the chief minister and party colleagues…have given me this opportunity,” Kamat said.

The seven-time MLA from Margao has oscillated between the Congress and the BJP in his political career. Kamat started his journey with the Congress. He joined the BJP in 1994 and won two elections as the party’s candidate from the party and first became a minister in the Manohar Parrikar-led Cabinet in 2000. He returned to the Congress in 2005 and was instrumental in bringing down the Parrikar-led BJP government in 2005.

In 2007, with opinion divided on whether to choose Ravi Naik or Pratapsingh Rane, the party finally named Kamat as the chief minister in the Congress-led coalition government. He remains the only chief minister in Goa to have completed a full five-year term.

Along with then PWD minister Churchill Alemao, Kamat was booked under the Prevention of Corruption Act in a bribery case. Alemao was PWD minister from 2007 to 2012 when officials of the US-based company, Louis Berger, allegedly paid bribes to win a consultancy bid for water augmentation and a sewerage pipeline project in Goa under the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).

Kamat, who served as mining minister of the state for 10 years, was indicted by a judicial commission in 2012 for reportedly allowing illegal mining in the state. The Centre-appointed Commission of Inquiry, headed by Justice M B Shah, had estimated a loss of Rs 35,000 crore to the state exchequer. A Sessions Court in Goa discharged him and 16 others in the case in February this year.

Earlier on Thursday morning, Canacona MLA Ramesh Tawadkar resigned as the Speaker of Goa Legislative Assembly.

“From the day I took the responsibility, I tried to do justice to the post [of Speaker]. I treated both the ruling and Opposition legislators as colleagues. I earned the respect from the Opposition, just as I earned it from the ruling side. I have a slight regret that I was not able to complete the full five-year term as the Speaker. I have to take this decision with a heavy heart since the party has given me a different responsibility with a view on the 2017 assembly elections,” said Tawadkar.

Tawadkar first became a minister in the Parrikar-led Cabinet in 2012 and held Sports, Youth Affairs and Tribal Welfare portfolios. He quit the BJP after he was denied a ticket in 2017 Assembly elections and contested as an Independent. He returned to the BJP in 2019 and was elected as an MLA in 2022, after which he became the Speaker.

BJP state president Damu Naik told The Indian Express, “Tawadkar comes from the ST community and has been associated with the party for a long time and has worked at the grassroot level. Kamat was the chief minister. So, both are quite experienced. The decision has been made in order to strengthen the party as the state goes to polls in 2027.”

Three BJP legislators – Calangute MLA Michael Lobo, Siolim MLA Delilah Lobo and former Art and Culture Minister Govind Gaude – were absent from the swearing-in ceremony. Gaude, a tribal leader, was dropped from the Cabinet after he levelled corruption allegations in the department of Tribal Welfare – a portfolio held by CM Sawant.

Naik dismissed any suggestions of internal dissent, saying, “They may have prior engagements.”