Panaji: The Goa political crisis took a new turn on Friday with the three defiant NCP MLAs, who pulled the rug from the Congress-led government reducing it to a minority, saying their party should be allowed to form a new ministry.
State NCP sources claimed that the MGP (2), Independent MLA Vishvajit Rane and lone UGDP legislator Atanasio Monsarratte have extended support for their party to form the new government.
The seven-month-old Digamber Kamat Government plunged into crisis on Wednesday after the three NCP MLAs and Rane decided to withdraw support.
The sources declined to say whether the new grouping is banking on senior partner Congress or Opposition BJP for support to get majority in a House of 40. It was not immediately clear whether the state NCP's government formation bid had the approval of the party supremo Sharad Pawar.
Before the crisis began, the Congress-led coalition had 23 seats — Congress(16), NCP(3), SGF(2) and Independents(2). In the Opposition, BJP and MGP had 14 and 2 seats respectively. UGDP's Monsarrattee was unattached.
Significantly, senior BJP leader Rajiv Pratap Rudy had a meeting with the NCP legislators on Friday amid allegations by the Congress that the saffron party was instigating the legislators to destabilise the Congress-led Government.
The defiance by the NCP legislators could be gauged from the fact that they skipped the talks convened by the party's Central leadership in Delhi on Friday in a bid to persuade them to retrace their steps.
NCP's Praful Patel, who held talks with his party MLAs in Panaji on Thursday, however voiced confidence that the government will survive. "We will find some solution," Patel said in Delhi.
Patel's optimism was in sharp contrast to Kamat's comment that God will save his government.
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