Presidential Poll: Buzz about Congress cross-voting in Goa

Panaji, July 18 (IANS) After all the 40 MLAs in the Goa Legislative assembly cast their votes for the Presidential election on Monday, there are talks about the possibility of cross-voting by some Congress legislators.

However, Congress MLA Sankalp Amonkar said that all the 11 MLAs of the party are united and there was no scope for cross-voting.

"I am very much confident that cross-voting did not happen," he said.

As on July 10, two-third of the Congress MLAs had reportedly made up their mind to join the BJP but the plan was defused by the senior leaders of of the party.

Following this, many BJP leaders felt that they will get votes from the opposition side.

Chief Minister Pramod Sawant said on Monday that NDA's Presidential candidate Draupadi Murmu will get more than 25 votes from Goa, as the BJP had requested all the MLAs to cast their vote in her favour.

The BJP has 20 legislators, and along with two MGP and three Independent MLAs, its strength goes up to 25.

Earlier this month, Congress had taken action against its leaders Michael Lobo and Digambar Kamat by filing disqualification petition against them with the Assembly Speaker for anti-party activities. The party also removed Lobo from the post of leader of opposition and Kamat from permanent invitee to the Congress Working Committee (CWC).