 "Goa Chief Minister Pramod Sawant and Goa BJP President Sadanand Shet Tanavade welcome eight Congress MLAs who joined the party, in Panaji (Photo: PTI)")
With the strength of Congress reduced to three, no opposition party in the Goa Legislative Assembly now has enough MLAs to stake claim to the post of Leader of Opposition.
Assembly Speaker Ramesh Tawadkar told PTI in the evening that he has approved the defecting Congress MLAs' resolution to merge the Congress Legislative Party with the BJP. Eight out of eleven Congress MLAs joined the ruling BJP earlier on Wednesday. Current Leader of Opposition Michael Lobo was among those who crossed over. Tawadkar, who was in Delhi when these eight MLAs passed a resolution to merge the Congress Legislative Party with the BJP, rushed to his office upon return to Goa on Wednesday evening. As to who would be the Leader of Opposition now, he said he would examine technicalities and give some clarity on Thursday. For any political party to stake claim for the post of LoP, it should have minimum ten percent of MLAs in the House. In 40-member Goa Assembly, a party needs to have at least four MLAs. AAP has two MLAs while Goa Forward Party and Revolutionary Goans Party have one MLA each.
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