The Goa NCP on Thursday evening asked two of its MLAs who are ministers in the Congress-led coalition to resign from the Cabinet after the duo met Congress leaders on Wednesday night, promising support to the party.
Tourism minister Nilkanth Halarnkar and revenue minister Jose Phillip D’Souza was asked by NCP state coordinator Mr Praful Hede to step down for “anti-party” activities.
“We have done nothing wrong,” said Mr D’Souza, adding, “The Congress is our coalition partner and we had only met the leaders to convey that Nilkanth and I were united and would stand by them. There’s nothing wrong with that.”
Sources say that the NCP is trying to get MLA and former tourism minister Mickky Pacheco re-inducted into the Cabinet, something which the beleaguered politician’s detractors will try to block. Mr Pacheco, who was more or less sidelined from politics earlier in the year after he was named the prime suspect in the mysterious suicide case of his girlfriend Nadia Torrado and after his placement agency was probed for illegally sending Goans abroad, had announced last week that he was once again a power to reckon with during a huge birthday bash organised for him in his constituency, Benaulim, in South Goa.
During the birthday bash, the MLA announced the NCP was powerful enough in Goa and need not partner with the Congress-led government and should go it alone in the next elections.
Mr Pacheco, of course, has no love lost for the Congress ministers as he blames his former Cabinet colleagues, particularly home minister Ravi Naik, for not standing by him and in fact, for setting the police on him in the Nadia Torrado suicide case.