Vijai Sardesai who is the head of the Goa Forward party and joined hands with its arch-rival BJP in the name of progress had addressed the Congress MLA’s as Monkeys who jumps from one place to the another. As news of some of Goa Congress MLAs crossing over to the BJP started making the rounds, Deputy Chief Minister, Vijai Sardesai equated these legislators to ‘monkeys’.
According to India Today, Deputy Chief Minister mocked the opposition party Congress when reports filtered in that some of its MLAs in Goa wanted to defect to the ruling BJP party. Equating them to monkeys Deputy Chief Minister Vijai Sardesai said that they hop from one place to another. Vijai Sardesai’s Goa Forward Party (GFP) is one of the constituents of the ruling BJP-led coalition party.
“There are so many monkeys in the Congress party who are ready to jump. We have read about it in the media. But we will not provide them any space in our fold. Let them stay where they are,´ he said referring to reports that at least 10 Congress MLAs were willing to cross over to the BJP.
According to BJP Goa unit president, Vinay Tendulkar around 10 MLAs of the Congress were keen to join the BJP but were denied entry into the saffron camp.
Sardesai made this statement at an event at which of Congress MLA Aleixo Reginaldo was also present. It is perhaps a fall-out of the speech Reginaldo made appreciating the afforestation efforts of the Sardesai led forest department to plant more trees in an effort to prevent monkeys from invading into human settlements. To which Sardesai replied, “I can understand that Reginaldo (Lourenco) is concerned about monkeys… Some MLAs from his own party have become monkeys”.
Source: India Today
