After going incommunicado, 5 Goa Cong MLAs attend Assembly session; claim nothing is wrong
Panaji (PTI): Five Goa Congress MLAs, who went incommunicado a day before, attended the state Assembly proceedings on the first day of the monsoon session on Monday, and claimed there was "nothing wrong" in the opposition party.
On Sunday, out of the total 11 Congress MLAs in the state, five -- Michael Lobo, Digambar Kamat, Kedar Naik, Rajesh Faldesai and Delialah Lobo -- had gone incommunicado, a senior party leader earlier said.
The Congress subsequently removed Lobo from the post of Leader of Opposition in the 40-member state Assembly.
Congress's Goa desk in-charge Dinesh Gundu Rao had alleged that "Lobo and Kamat were hatching a conspiracy by hobnobbing with the BJP to engineer a split in the Congress."
Talking to reporters on Monday, Lobo claimed there was nothing wrong in the party.
There is nothing wrong. I don't know what is the problem. All Congress MLAs were together. We went to South Goa for a meeting on Sunday. They (Congress leaders) again wanted to have another press conference which was not required, so we did not attend it, said Lobo, whose wife Delialah is also a Congress MLA.
Lobo said they won the state election on the Congress's ticket and they stand with the party.
On replacing him as the leader of opposition, Lobo said he had told the party that he was not interested to continue as the LoP.
Former chief minister Digambar Kamat and his Congress colleague Rajesh Faldesai also said they were with the party. The two Congress MLAs said they were not in the party office on Sunday due to personal commitments.
Talking to reporters outside the Assembly complex, Kamat said he was very much with the Congress.
I had met Dinesh Gundu Rao on Saturday. I told him that I am hurt because of the humiliation that I faced in the party, the former CM said, adding that rumours of him joining the BJP were floating since 2017.
I stayed with the Congress. I led the party from front during the Assembly election (earlier this year), but after the polls, I was not given the post of leader of opposition, Kamat said.
MLA Rajesh Faldesai also said he was with the party and had informed Goa Congress chief Amit Patkar about his absence (from the party office on Sunday), as he was at home due to personal reasons.
Faldesai said rumours were being spread that he met Chief Minister Pramod Sawant on Sunday.
Before the commencement of the Assembly session, a senior Congress leader said they had moved five other MLAs, who were with the party, to an undisclosed location, to avoid a 'split' in the outfit and that they will attend the session.
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Cong to distribute over 40 lakh pamphlets focused on 'Mahalakshmi' scheme
New Delhi (PTI): The Congress is set to step up its outreach to women ahead of the sixth and seventh phases of the Lok Sabha polls with plans in place to distribute more than 40 lakh pamphlets focused on its proposed "Mahalakshmi" scheme under which Rs 1 lakh will be given every year to a woman from a poor family, sources said.
In a video message, Sonia Gandhi had said last week that women of the country are facing tough times in the wake of a "severe crisis" and the party's proposed 'Mahalakshmi scheme' for them will help change their lives.
"The Congress' 'Mahalakshmi' scheme guarantees that we will give Rs 1 lakh every year to a woman from a poor family," she had said in her video message.
Sources said the Congress is all set to distribute more than 40 lakh pamphlets with key focus on "Mahalakshmi" scheme in poll-bound constituencies across the country ahead of the sixth and seventh phases.
Addressing a rally here on Saturday, former Congress president Rahul Gandhi spoke about the Mahalakshmi scheme the party intended to bring if the INDIA bloc came to power.
"We will make crores of lakhpatis. Under the scheme, a list of all families living below the poverty line will be drawn and a woman will be chosen from each family and the INDIA bloc will give them one lakh rupees in a year by depositing Rs 8,500 per month," he had said.
At a public meeting earlier, Gandhi had said that on July 1, when the poor women will check their accounts, they will find that Rs 8,500 have 'magically' been deposited.
And this will happen on the first of every month, he had said.
Sources said it was during Bharat Jodo Yatra and Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra, that several women met Gandhi and shared their grievances with him, and after that the Congress came up with the Mahalakshmi scheme.
Mahalakshmi scheme is among the main five guarantees that the Congress has promised.
"The Congress resolves to launch a Mahalakshmi scheme to provide Rs 1 lakh per year to every poor Indian family as an unconditional cash transfer. The poor will be identified among the families in the bottom of the income pyramid," the Congress manifesto has said.
The sixth phase of the Lok Sabha pills will be held on May 25 while the seventh and final phase will be held on June 1.
The counting of votes will take place on June 4.
