M A I N   N E W S

Goa Crisis
CM wins over rebels
Shiv Kumar
Tribune News Service

Mumbai, July 24
The less than two-month old government of Chief Minister Digambar Kamat in Goa survived a major scare late this evening after three rebel MLAs were prevented from resigning their seats in the Assembly.

After being closeted for more than two hours with the rebels, Kamat said the issues raised by the three - Joaquim Alemao, Shyam Satardekar and Victoria Fernandes - have been sorted out.

The government was in the throes of major trouble this morning when all the three MLAs held meetings with their supporters after being sounded out by the BJP, sources said.

Alemao, accompanied by brother Churchill, who is also an MLA from the Save Goa Front, said he wanted Kamat to handover the State Urban Development Agency to his ministry as a condition for staying loyal. Kamat had offered this body to his deputy Ravi Naik to prevent him from rebelling.

Sources say the temperature went several notches up after it became clear that the opposition BJP had offered the post of Chief Minister to PWD minister Sudhin Dhavalikar who heads the two-member Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party.

BJP leader Manohar Parrikar had offered to back the government headed by Dhavlikar from outside.

However, Kamat held talks with Dhavalikar and persuaded him to stay onboard even as his emissaries worked on the rebel Congress MLAs. Two independent MLAs, industrialist Anil Salgaocar and Vishwajit Rane, son of speaker Pratapsinh Rane, refused to join the rebels.

The rebellion was the brainchild of the lone United Goans Democratic Party MLA Babush Monserrate and the Alemao brothers who are backed by some real estate companies which mobilised crores of rupees from the stock markets recently.