Goa Congress chief says party will challenge HC order on disqualification of MLAs

Congress's Goa state executive committee on Monday said it will challenge last week's order by the Bombay High Court bench in Goa, which dismissed a plea seeking the disqualification of ten Congress MLAs and two Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) MLAs. The 12 MLAs had left their respective parties and joined the ruling BJP in 2019.

Goa Congress chief Girish Chodankar had filed a disqualification petition against 10 party MLAs who had switched over to the BJP in 2019. MGP MLA Sudin Dhavalikar had also filed a similar petition before the bench against two MGP MLAs who had joined the BJP in the same year by splitting the party. The pleas were, however, dismissed by the High Court.

"We have taken a resolution during the meeting to challenge the High Court's order... Former Advocate General and Chairman of our legal cell Carlos Ferreira moved a resolution that this needs to be challenged in the Supreme Court and the resolution has been unanimously passed," state unit chief Girish Chodankar said, after a meeting of the state executive committee.

"The Pradesh Congress Committee had previously taken a resolution to file a disqualification against the 10 defectors. We briefed the PCC about the verdict of the High Court and all the members were of the opinion that if the order is allowed to stand then it will be dangerous for democracy and for the election process and questions the very existence of political parties," he said.

In 2019, Chodankar had filed a similar petition with the Goa Speaker's office, seeking the disqualification of the 10 MLAs who had left Congress to join BJP. However, the Goa Speaker in his order in April last year had upheld the merger of the breakaway Congress unit into the BJP.