Digvijaya Singh asks Rane to explain his meeting with Parrikar

Congress general secretary Digvijaya Singh on Wednesday asked party MLA Vishwajit Rane to explain his meeting with Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar.

"All is well internally within the party. Rane should explain what he was doing with Parrikar in a hotel," Singh said.

He added the Congress wins people by heart and not through money.

"As far as Congress is concerned, we neither take money nor give money. We win the people by heart and the people of Goa have voted for us not because of money but heart. We are prepared to fight for the rights of the people," he said.

He added that one has to understand how the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) received the mandate in the assembly polls.

Days after a group of the Congress' Goa legislators blamed the central leadership for failure to form the government in the state despite being the single largest party after the assembly polls, party MLA Vishwajit Rane today said that he, along with five to six other MLAs, would quit the party if party vice-president Rahul Gandhi does not respond adequately to the letter written to him by them.

Rane and his group of legislators wrote a letter Gandhi complaining about the senior Congress leadership.

In the letter, he said that the senior leaders were responsible for the party losing out on the opportunity to form the government in the state.

Rane asserted that it was shocking how despite having people's mandate in the form of 17 seats in the assembly, the situation was mismanaged by the people in charge of affairs in Goa.

He further said that he would meet Gandhi and try to draw out a conclusion.

Meanwhile, Parrikar has claimed the support of 13 MLAs of the BJP, three MLAs of Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP), three MLAs of Goa Forward Party (GFP) and two independent MLAs, thus having a total of 21 MLAs in the 40-member Assembly.

The Congress won 17 seats with the BJP finishing second in the state with 13 seats.