Sardinha wins Goa confidence vote

The Sardinha government, which assumed office on November 24 after Luizinho Faleiro tendered the resignation of his five-month-old Congress government, was asked to prove its majority within 21 days by the then governor Lt Gen (retd) J F R Jacob. The BJP partners joined the government on November 26. In the forty-member House, the Sardinha government mustered the support of 25 for the trust vote and the Opposition Congress 14.

Speaking on the motion, Chief Minister Sardinha lashed out at the autocratic style of functioning of Luizinho Faleiro, who he said, treated the affairs of the Congress party in Goa as his private property.

He said Faleiroconcentrated on development of his own constituency, neglecting several constituencies which needed greater attention. He added that Faleiro never took his colleagues into confidence during the last five-and-a-half months of his rule. "He had to be toppled in the best interests of Goa," Sardinha said and appealed to the Congress Opposition to extend cooperation and support his new coalition experiment in which BJP is a partner for the first time since the liberation of this tiny former Portuguese colony in 1961.

Participating in the debate, Leader of the Opposition Ravi Naik, who replaced Luizinho Faleiro yesterday, said he was not interested in the toppling game as feared by some members of the ruling combine.

He said there were several basic needs of the common man which needed to be addressed to serve those particularly in the rural segments.

Manohar Parrikar (BJP) flatly denied that his party had any role to play in the vertical split in the Congress Legislature Party which led to the formation of anew government in Goa.

He said the Congress party was plagued with cliques and intrigues and the result was the collapse of the Faleiro government.

Parrikar said Faleiro’s rule was a "coterie rule" and defended the BJP’s participation in the Sardinha-led government, saying that it was a measure to provide stability to the new government so that it could rule comfortably for the next four-and-a-half years.

Deputy Chief Minister Dayanand Narvekar said that Faleiro preferred to engineer defections in smaller parties like the MGP, NCP and United Goans Democratic Party (UGDP) to sideline senior Congressmen in the Ministry, despite the fact that the people of Goa had given the Congress a simple majority of 21 in the House of 40. Faleiro chose to accommodate non-Congressmen to muster personal support, he said.