In another blow to the Congress ahead of the Goa elections, party MLA and former Chief Minister Ravi Naik on Tuesday tendered his resignation from the state assembly. In October this year, former Goa Chief Minister Luizinho Faleiro had resigned as a Congress MLA and later joined the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress.
With Naik’s resignation, the strength of the Congress has come down to three in the 40-member state assembly. Naik, who represents Ponda seat in Goa, submitted his resignation to Speaker Rajesh Patnekar. He was accompanied by his two sons, who had joined the ruling BJP last year. I have resigned. “I will tell you what is the next course of action,” Naik told reporters here after submitting his resignation.
According to sources, Naik is expected to join the BJP later in the day in the presence of the party’s Goa election in-charge Devendra Fadnavis. Ravi Naik’s younger son Roy Naik said that he has requested his father to join the BJP.
In the 2017 state assembly elections, Congress emerged as the single largest party by winning 17 seats. However, the BJP, which won 13 seats, formed an alliance with some regional organizations and independent candidates to form the government in the coastal state. Since then, many Congress MLAs have left the party and joined the BJP.
After the 2017 elections, Valpoi MLA Vishwajit Rane was the first to resign from the Congress. Later he joined BJP and won the by-election from this seat. Rane is currently the health minister of the state.
Soon after Rane’s exit, two more Congress MLAs – Subhash Shirodkar (who represented the Shiroda seat) and Dayanand Sopte (Mandrem) left the party to join the BJP. Both of them later won the by-elections held in May 2019. The biggest blow to the Goa Congress came in July 2019, when a group of 10 of its MLAs left the party under the leadership of the then Leader of Opposition Chandrakant Kavlekar.
Kavlekar is currently serving as the Deputy Chief Minister in the Pramod Sawant-led state government. At present, the Congress has only three MLAs in the state – Leader of the Opposition Digambar Kamat, Alexo Reginaldo (representing Curtorim assembly seat) and Pratapsinh Rane (from Porim seat).
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