Goa: 8 MLAs ditch Cong for BJP as Rahul resumes Bharat Jodo Yatra

Panaji, Sep 14: As the Congress leader Rahul Gandhi resumed the eighth day of his Bharat Jodo Yatra from Kerala's Thiruvananthapuram on Wednesday morning, his party got a body blow in Goa as eight members from his party joined the BJP.

With this exodus, Congress is now left with just three members in the 40-member Assembly in the state.

Eight Congress MLAs including Digambar Kamat, Michael Lobo, Delilah Lobo, Rajesh Phaldesai, Kedar Naik, Sankalp Amonkar, Aleixo Sequeira and Rudolf Fernandes joined BJP today.

"We have joined BJP to strengthen the hands of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Pramod Sawant... 'Congress chhodo, BJP ko jodo'," ANI quoted Congress MLA Michael Lobo in a tweet.

Lobo formally announced the news of joining after meeting Chief Minister Pramod Sawant.

The development comes when Rahul Gandhi's ambitious Bharat Jodo Yatra entered its eighth day. The Congress General Secretary on Wednesday commenced the yatra on a spiritual note by paying his respects to renowned philosopher and social reformer Sree Narayana Guru at Sivagiri Mutt.

At Sivagiri Mutt, Gandhi met the swamis there and offered prayers to the saint reformer before commencing the fourth day of the Kerala leg of the Congress party's 3,570 kilometres and 150-day long foot march which started off from Kanyakumari in Tamil Nadu and will conclude at Jammu and Kashmir.

On the other hand, the Congress, in July, had successfully prevented its MLAs from quitting the party in Goa while asking the Speaker to disqualify Kamat and Lobo under the anti-defection law for allegedly conspiring with the BJP to engineer the defection of eight of its 11 MLAs in the state. The Speaker is yet to take a call on the plea.

Also, Lobo, who had switched from BJP to Congress before the polls, was removed as the Leader of Opposition.

In a similar move in July 2019, 10 Congress MLAs had switched over to the BJP.