Congress MLAs join BJP: Congress ally Goa Forward Party has termed MLAs defaction to the ruling BJP as 'pure evil'. It even said the MLAs who have switched sides are 'enemies of the people and God.' Eight Congress MLAs in Goa, including former chief minister Digambar Kamat, joined the ruling BJP, in a body blow to the opposition party which will be left with just three MLAs in the 40-member state Assembly.
In his statement, the Goa Forward Party President Vijai Sardesai said - "The eight legislators who have decided, against all political propriety, basic decency, and honesty, to pursue their greed for wealth and hunger for power, stand today as the symbols of pure evil, displaying their shameless selfishness, avarice and chicanery, in defiance of Almighty God."
"The people of Goa are backstabbed and their faith destroyed first by oaths and then this betrayal, and they will note that this act of perfidy comes on the Hindu auspicious period of Pitru Paksa, when these MLAs chose to repay their debts to their ancestors in this devious and false-hearted manner. "
"We often see political defections as betrayal of the people’s mandate; but it’s much more than that. It’s a betrayal of the people, subversion of the political and democratic process, the repudiation of their own parentage, and the denigration and mockery of God."
"This scornful act of undisguised disloyalty and treachery towards the very people who elected them will never be forgotten by the people of Goa, who have reached the limit of their patience and tolerance for such enemies of the people, and will respond to them in a fitting manner. Those who are contemptuous and dismissive towards the values that Goemkars cherish and uphold, await the wrath of the people who will teach them a lesson that they or their coming generations will not forget. "
"The BJP who are in power not because of the mandate of the people but because of deceit and manipulation has lowered democracy and parliamentary politics to its nadir, reduced Goa to ridicule, by treating people’s representatives as commodities, like sacks of wheat, to be bought for a price; and the unscrupulous and unfaithful MLAs have allowed them to be purchased like cattle. The people will not forget that the chef minister who would consider himself to be victorious in this dirty bargain has miserably failed in every constitutional and administrative duty he’s been assigned including the proper governance of the state, protection of life and property of its citizens. "
"We will, as a party, fight this political plague that has destroyed Goa, and appeal to true Goemkars to reject these traitors with the contempt they deserve from our civilised and discerning society, and brand them as enemies of the people and God."
