The Goa unit Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Vinay Tendulkar claimed on Wednesday that 10 Congress MLAs had approached them to merge their legislative unit, but it was rejected. Mr. Tendulkar dismissed as “baseless” the allegations made by Goa Congress president Girish Chodankar that between “money and ministership” were offered to these MLAs. Earlier, 10 Congress MLAs had come to merge the party with the BJP. Mr. Tendulkar also said when two Congress MLAs Subhash Shirodkar and Dayanand Sopte joined his party last year, there was no financial exchange. It is the Congress which had the habit of giving money to MLAs to defect, not BJP, he added.

Source: The Hindu June 12, 2019 20:03 UTC