According to sources, the Goa Congress unit has not held a single meeting after it failed to reach the majority mark of 21 in the 40-member assembly.
In Goa, where Assembly elections are a few months away, a delegation of Trinamool Congress (TMC) leaders led by Lok Sabha member Saugata Roy and including former Union Minister Babul Supriyo and the party's vice president Luizinho Faleiro met Governor P S Sridharan Pillai and requested him to immediately seek resignation from the chief minister and announce investigation by an independent agency.
If pandemic (mis)management threatened to dominate Goa's electoral discourse, the BJP is up against a deeper structural issue in its organisation, created by the fact that a majority of the legislature party and the ministerial council is made up of Congress defectors, disparagingly referred to by the Opposition as "imports". Radhika Ramaseshan reports.
As people queued up across these states to cast their vote, there were some famous faces in the lines at different polling stations.
He also said that although India got independence much before Goa became free, people of the country could not enjoy at that time as they felt uneasy thinking that one part was the country was still under foreign rule.
Sawant took the oath in Konkani language.
Chidambaram, who is the Congress' senior election observer for the assembly polls next year, asserted that the Trinamool Congress' entry into Goa "appears to be an imposition from the top that is based in West Bengal" and said he does not know the Mamata Banerjee-led party's motive in trying to start a unit in Goa by "encouraging defections" from other parties.
Five Goa Congress MLAs, who went incommunicado a day before, attended the state assembly proceedings on the first day of the monsoon session on Monday, and claimed there was 'nothing wrong' in the opposition party.
The Association of Democratic Reforms said Goa has set a unique record, which is "unparalleled" in the history of Indian democracy.
Michael Lobo, who resigned as deputy speaker of the Goa Legislative Assembly, and three of the 10 MLAs who joined the BJP -- Chandrakant Kavlekar, Jeniffer Monserratte, Philip Neri Rodrigues -- were sworn in as new ministers.
The Congress has accused the two MLAs of hobnobbing with the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party to bring about a split in the opposition party.
In yet another jolt the Congress ahead of the Goa Assembly polls, the party's state working president, Aleixo Reginaldo Lourenco, resigned as member of the legislative assembly on Monday, reducing the party's strength to two in the 40-member House.
Chidambaram, who is the Congress' senior election observer for the Goa Assembly polls, also hit out at the Trinamool Congress for its barbs at the Congress for not forging an alliance with it, saying the party continued to poach Congress leaders, despite making an offer of a tie-up.
'The greed for power of the BJP and its allies is exposed to the fact that they can't even give charge to a trusted lieutenant in the absence of the CM.'
With Manohar Parrikar's methodical approach to governance Goa may see better days ahead, says Aditi Phadnis
In both the states where the Bharatiya Janata Party came second is trying to turn the tables on the Congress to form the government.
The MGP, which had won three seats in the 2017 polls, is currently left with only one MLA after two of its legislators joined the ruling BJP.
The cabinet of the new government led by Rekha Gupta balances representation of all major communities that propelled the Bharatiya Janata Party to power in Delhi with a massive majority after over 26 years.
The Goa CM knows running a coalition government while pursuing a development agenda will require a fine balancing act.
Gomes said if voted to power, the AAP's priority will be to improve the governance structure.
Shiv Sena leader Eknath Shinde was on Thursday sworn in as Maharashtra chief minister, while the BJP's Devendra Fadnavis took oath as deputy chief minister.
It is a record that the saffron party has created, where the majority of its legislators belonged to the minority community.
In a statement, the lawyer of Irani's daughter, said his client is neither an owner nor operating the restaurant called Silly Souls Goa.
The Trinamool Congress on Saturday promised to roll out a direct cash transfer scheme for women in Goa if it is voted to power in the state after the Assembly polls due in February next year.
Giving a new poll slogan of 'Khel Zatlo' in Goa, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday said an anti-BJP alliance has already taken shape in the coastal state under the banner of her party TMC and now it is for the Congress to decide whether it wants to join the grouping ahead of elections to take on the saffron outfit.
The TMC, which is keen to leave a mark in its outing in Goa, had suggested a broad alliance but not much has moved on the proposal due to competing interests and apparent lack of faith between the opposition parties.
Rane, 87, who has served as the chief minister of the coastal state for six times, had won from the Poriem assembly constituency as many as 11 consecutive times.
The BJP is certain that the TMC will divide the Opposition votes, leaving it free to cruise through the polls.
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party in Goa looks all set to score a hattrick in the coastal state with the support of the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party, as vote counting trends of the February 14 elections indicated the BJP missing the majority mark by a whisker.
Manohar Parrikar, the chief minister of Goa and former defence minister, died at his son's home in Panaji on Sunday after a long illness. He was 63. Since February 2018, Parrikar had been in and out of hospitals in Goa, Mumbai, Delhi and New York after he was diagnosed with a pancreatic condition. Following his demise, tributes poured in from all over with political lines being forgotten.
The death of the former defence minister, who represented the Panaji assembly seat, will also necessitate a fourth bypoll in Goa.
'TMC was calling me, AAP was also calling me.' 'But my supporters helped me realise that the people of Goa are backing the Congress this time to defeat the BJP.'
With Atishi at the helm it will not be easy for the BJP to continue using the LG's office and the bureaucracy as political instruments to hinder governance and thereby provoke the electorate's ire against the AAP, expects Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
The Congress, which is not very keen on having an alliance with the TMC, called it 'an untrustworthy ally', which is trying to grow at its expense.
Chandrasekhar was reacting to the arrest of Tamil Nadu Bharatiya Janata Party leader S G Suryah under the Indian Penal Code and the Information Technology (IT) Act allegedly over a social media post.
Modi said he appreciates all doctors, medical staff, and people in administration in the country for this effort.
Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee has recently written to all opposition parties including the Congress, calling on everyone to come together and put up a united fight against saffron forces.
Dhami under whose leadership the BJP had contested the February 14 assembly polls was the frontrunner for the post.
'Like any other person who may not occupy public office has a right to not disclose his health problems to the public'
Former Goa's Inspector General of Prison, Elvis Gomes will be AAP's chief ministerial candidate for 2017 polls.
