The 45 year old, Bhartiya Janta Party’s Pramod Sawant on Tuesday surged in as Goa CM after the former defence minister and four-time CM of Goa Manohar Parrikar passed away on Sunday. On Tuesday Pramod Sawant took oath as chief minister of Goa in a ceremony held at 2 am. Goa Forward Party chief Vijai Sardesai and Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party’s Sudin Dhavalikar were made deputy chief ministers.
Sawant’s swearing-in ceremony was initially scheduled to be held at 11pm on Monday but it was pushed back, with the allies seeking to extract their pound of flesh.
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.
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.
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 govt and allowing BJP to carry on horse trading despite BJP not having sufficient numbers to form the govt,” Congress’s Sunil Kawthankar said.
