On Sunday, Congress President Sonia Gandhi urged Mukul Wasnik, a top party official, to go immediately to Goa to “oversee new political events” there.
Two of these lawmakers, Michael Lobo and former chief minister Digambar Kamat, have been accused by the Congress of “conspiring” and “hobnobbing” with the BJP to create a rift among the legislative side of the grand old party.
“Congress President has ordered Shri @MukulWasnik, MP to hurry to Goa to supervise new political events in the state,” stated AICC general secretary KC Venugopal in a late-night tweet.
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Additionally, the party deposed Mr Lobo as leader of the opposition in the state Assembly, which has 40 members.
On the eve of the assembly session, late Sunday night, the party’s Goa desk in-charge, Dinesh Gundu Rao, made the news regarding the lawmakers being placed incommunicado and the dismissal of Mr Lobo.
The development comes amid rumours that a few Congress legislators may defect to the BJP. On this day, exactly three years ago, a group of 10 Congress MLAs defected to the BJP from the party.
The news also occurs just after the political unrest in Maharashtra, a neighbouring state, when the Shiv Sena, which was in power there, split after a revolt by senior politician Eknath Shinde, who succeeded Uddhav Thackeray as Chief Minister in the last week of June.
On June 20-21, Mr Shinde and his supporting MLAs cut off all communication before heading to Surat and Guwahati.
