Goa:In a major development, the Congress high command on Saturday late evening replaced its senior leader Digvijay Singh as party in-charge in the States of Goa and Karnataka.
The unexpected political moves comes in the wake of assembly elections held in goa in February, when the Congress party led by him failed to form the government despite winning the largest number of seats. Congress had 17 seats in the 40 member assembly. At present it is reduced to 16.
On the other hand Karnataka State will be going for polls next year.
In an statement issued by AICC general secretary and MP Janardan Dwivedi on Saturday, it is been said that the party president Sonia Gandhi has assigned the task of looking after Karnataka and Goa affairs to the new AICC teams.
AICC secretary Dr Chella Kumar is now appointed as the Goa incharge, while Amit Deshmukh as secretary. Kumar, was earlier assisting Singh in handling party’s functioning in Goa.Singh was slammed by his own party leadership at the Centre as well as in Goa after Congress failed to form the government in Goa, despite emerging as single largest party. His decision not to go for pre-poll alliance was strongly criticised.
BJP led by Manohar Parrikar formed the government in coalition with regional parties.
Leaders like party president Luizinho Faleiro, MLAs Alexio Reginaldo Lourenco and then MLA and current BJP Minister Vishwajit Rane had directly blamed Singh for party’s failure to form the government. They had even complaint to party vice president Rahul Gandhi seeking immediate action against Singh.
Singh, who alleged that Parrikar had cheated the people of the State by robbing the mandate and Union Minister Nitin Gadkari, who helped the BJP in forming the government had indulged in ‘aggressive MLA shopping’, was thanked by the BJP leaders for allowing them to form government, while he being busy enjoying Goa holiday.
AICC secretary Girish Chodankar has welcome the move stating ‘Congress is need of young blood’. However, ruled out the fact that Singh removal was basically over his Goa election fiasco. “ You cannot blame Singh for robbery. Our victory was robbed and we did not failed,” he commented.
Meanwhile in Karnataka, Congress replaced Singh with K C Venugopal, Lok Sabha MP from Kerala.
Team TNV
