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BJP starts overhaul in Goa, 2 ailing ministers in Parrikar cabinet dropped

Hindustan Times, Panaji | ByGerard Desouza
Sep 24, 2018 01:13 PM IST

On Sunday, BJP president Amit Shah said there will be a cabinet reshuffle soon but the ruling party in the state would stick with Manohar Parrikar as the Goa chief minister despite his illness.

Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar has dropped the two ministers in his cabinet as part of the first step to counter criticism from the opposition Congress that the BJP-led coalition government had stopped functioning and brought governance to a halt.

The two ministers, Francis DeSouza and Pandurang Madkaikar, have been ailing for some time.

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Power minister Madkaikar had suffered a brain stroke in June and has been at a Mumbai hospital.Urban development minister DeSouza is under treatment at a hospital in the US. “This is my reward for my two-decade loyalty to the party,” DeSouza said in his first reaction to news of his exit .

The two would be replaced by BJP lawmakers Nilesh Cabral and Milind Naik who will be sworn-in later this evening.

Nilesh Cabral is a BJP lawmaker from South Goa district’s Curchorem seat while Milind Naik represents the district’s Mormugao seat. Naik was the power minister in the previous Laxmikant Parsekar-led cabinet.

Just yesterday, BJP chief Amit Shah had announced the party’s decision to stick with Parrikar in the chief minister’s chair but made it clear that there would changes in the cabinet.

The cabinet reshuffle, which will be followed by reallocation of portfolios, is also aimed at mollifying the coalition’s allies who have been squabbling over a larger share of the ministries.

One of them, the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) even had been dropping hints that its leader should be Goa’s interim chief minister till Parrikar is back from Delhi’s All India’s Institute of Medical Science. It helped the BJP that the other alliance partner, the Goa Forward Party (GFP), did not agree,

In between, the BJP also explored the possibility of replacing Parrikar who was admitted to Delhi’s All India Institute of Medical Sciences on September 15 but appears to have given up the idea, for now. There were indications that it might be difficult to hold the coalition together in absence of Parrikar in the government.

In 2017, the Congress had emerged as the single largest part with 16 lawmakers in the 40-member house last year. The BJP despite winning only 13 seats in the 40-member Goa assembly last year, stitched together an alliance of parties with disparate interests who made Parrikar’s leadership conditional to joining the alliance.

In a bid to pressurise the BJP on the issue, the ruling Congress submitted a memorandum before the Goa Governor on Monday staking claim to form the government saying the current BJP-led government was in a minority.

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