A coup attempt by former Goa minister Michael Lobo in the Congress would have been successful had a BJP leader not spilled the beans.

Senior BJP minister Vishwajeet Rane and Lobo don’t see eye-to-eye on many issues and have engaged in a bitter power tussle for years.

Since taking over as Public Works Department (PWD) minister after the BJP won the assembly elections earlier this year, Rane has been targeting Lobo and his businesses.

As the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader, Lobo enjoyed the status of a cabinet minister. Both Rane and Lobo have been eyeing the chief minister’s post for a long time now.

So, when Rane went after him, Lobo approached chief minister Pramod Sawant. Apparently, he was asked to engineer a 2/3rd split in the Congress and merge it with the BJP. That would have made Sawant comfortable and given him an opportunity to do to Rane what he did to Goa Forward Party (GFP) chief Vijay Sardesai after getting ten Congress legislators into the BJP. He sacked Sardesai and made the then CLP leader Babu Kavlekar the deputy chief minister.

Rane alerted his good friend Sardesai who in turn swung into action and informed the Congress leadership. He even opened a separate channel of communication with some of the Congress legislators and persuaded them to abandon their plan.

Hence, Lobo was forced to abort his coup attempt. The Congress leadership removed him as the CLP leader and the Leader of the Opposition. 

He could not muster the required number and had to eat a humble pie, insisting that he remains loyal to the Congress. It was also interesting that Lobo was joined in this attempt by senior leader and former chief minister Digambar Kamat.

The two did not share good relations till recently. The Congress has now moved a disqualification petition against both of them though Lobo met party chief Sonia Gandhi’s special emissary Mukul Wasnik and pleaded not guilty.

The Congress has refused to buy his arguments so far and maintained that it would go ahead with its demand for disqualification of the two rebel leaders.