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Naik replaces Faleiro as Goa CLP chief

Sandesh Prabhudesai in Panjim

Francisco Sardinha, Goa's second chief minister in five months, is all set to win the vote of confidence tomorrow while outgoing chief minister Luizinho Faleiro was replaced as the Congress Legislature Party leader today.

The Congress government collapsed after Sardinha and 10 other MLAs split to form a coalition government with the 10-member BJP legislature party.

Sardinha, who has been holding the reins of power since Wednesday last with the BJP, is also supported by two legislators of the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party, the lone MLA of the Nationalist Congress Party, and an independent, taking his strength to 25.

Meanwhile, Ravi Naik, another former chief minister, replaced Faleiro as CLP leader. Naik will now be leader of the Opposition in the state assembly.

Faleiro, however, will continue to be the Goa Pradesh Congress Committee chief.

Mabel Rebello, an emissary sent by party president Sonia Gandhi last week after the fall of the Congress government, submitted her report in Delhi. Most of the 14 Congress legislators (minus Speaker Pratapsing Rane) had favoured Naik as the new leader.

It is also learnt that Gandhi was quite upset with Faleiro as well as both the observers she had sent earlier -- Ramesh Chennithala and Govind Adik -- based on whose misinformation she made a statement that Faleiro would win the trust vote. On the contrary, Faleiro resigned the next day before the assembly session could begin.

Motilal Vora, another emissary of the high command, who was accompanied by M O H Farooq, announced this evening that Naik had been unanimously elected leader of the CLP. "The change was made as Faleiro offered to step down after his downfall," he claimed.

Meanwhile, BJP leader Manohar Parrikar, MLA, while parading all his 10 legislators before the media, announced that no legislator from his party would defect and news reports about defections and the new government being toppled were only rumours.

Alleging that emissaries of Naik as well as Congress strongman Churchill Alemao had approached his legislators with offers of money, ministerships and chairmanships of corporations, he warned that any such attempt again would be met with physical violence as well as a complaint to the income tax authorities.

Naik and Alemao have both strongly denied the allegation, claiming that no attempt is being made by them to topple the five-day-old government.

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