[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]The Bharatiya Janata Party’s Pramod Sawant today (Tuesday, March 19) sworn in as Goa CM who took oath in a ceremony held at 2 am, after a long party meeting throughout the day.
Sawant succeeded four-time Goa CM and former defence minister Manohar Parrikar who breathed his last on Sunday.
The new Chief Minister will be aided by two deputies’ likely Goa Forward Party Chief Vijai Sardesai and Maharashtrawadi Gomantak party MLA Sudin Dhavalikar, from two small parties backing BJP in the coastal state.
Apart from the CM and his two deputies, nine other ministers of the state cabinet were also sworn in at the late-night ceremony.
The nine other ministers are Manohar Azgaonkar, Rohan Khaunte, Govind Gaude, Vinod Palienkar, Jayesh Salgaonkar, Mauvin Godinho, Vishwajit Rane, Milind Naik and Nilesh Cabral.
Michael Lobo, currently the deputy speaker, will be speaker till a new one is elected.
Sawant, along with union minister Nitin Gadkari, went to stake claim to form the government after midnight as power-sharing talks with the alliance partners continued till late.
The new CM said the party had given him a huge responsibility, and gave credit to Parrikar for his rise. “Whatever I am today is all due to Manohar Parrikar. It was he who brought me to politics. I became the Speaker and the CM today, due to him,” he said after meeting the Governor.
Sawant was elected leader of the BJP legislature party at a meeting held in the state capital minutes after Parrikar was given a state funeral with full military honours.
BJP chief Amit Shah and Gadkari met the legislators before the formal resolution was passed.
Things you should know about Sawant
Sawant is a two-time MLA from the Sankhalim from North Goa and was speaker of the State Assembly in 2017 and is a devoted RSS worker.
Sawant began his political career in BJP as a youth leader and is known for his hard working nature within the party and has been a close aid of the late Manohar Parrikar.
Sawant won the 2012 and 2017 Assembly election from Sankhalim, which is believed to a congress strong-hold region.
He was among the few BJP MLAs who got re-elected in their constituencies during the state polls two years ago(2017), when the party had won only 13 seats as compared to 21 in 2012.
He is a former chairman of the Goa State Infrastructure Development Corporation, a special purpose vehicle set up by Parrikar to take up various infrastructure works in the coastal state.
Sawant holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Ayurveda, Medicine and Surgery from Ganga Education Society’s Ayurvedic College in Kolhapur district of Maharashtra. He has completed his Masters in Social Welfare from the Tilak Maharashtra Vidyapeeth, a deemed university in Pune.
His wife Sulakshana heads the BJP Mahila Morcha in Goa and his daughter studies in class 6.
While BJP members are satisfied to see Sawant as the new Goa CM but Congress on the other hand has shown their dissatisfaction over state governor Mridula Sinha’s decision for not allowing the grand old party to form a government in the state.
The Goa Congress slammed Governor Mridula Sinha for giving the BJP a chance to form the government, and called her an “agent of the BJP”.
“We’re strongly condemning undemocratic action of Goa Governor Mridula Sinha for not allowing our single largest party to form the government and allowing BJP to carry on horse trading despite BJP not having sufficient numbers to form the government,” Congress’s Sunil Kawthankar said.
Kawthankar said the day will be remembered as “darkest day in Indian democracy.” “The state is without legitimate government despite Congress party being the single largest and staking its claim,” he added.
The Congress is currently the single largest party in the state with 14 MLAs. The BJP has 12 legislators in the 40-member Assembly, whose strength now is 36 after Parrikar’s death.
The strength of the House has reduced due to demise of BJP MLA Francis D’Souza earlier this year, and Parrikar on Sunday, and resignations of two Congress MLAs Subhash Shirodkar and Dayanand Sopte last year.
All the state Congress MLAs had also met Governor Mridula Sinha on Monday and staked claim to form government in the coastal state.
There had been a series of meetings involving the Goa Forward Party and Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party’s three MLAs each, an equal number of Independents, and BJP legislators since late Sunday night to reach a consensus on Parrikar’s successor.
Gadkari had flown into the state early Monday to lead the discussion.
Parrikar was heading a coalition government comprising the BJP, three MLAs each of the Goa Forward Party (GFP), the MGP and three independents.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
