Goa Bharatiya Janata Party chief Sadanand Shet Tanavade on Wednesday, September 14, said that 8 Congress MLAs from Goa are all set to join the ruling BJP.

The change will reduce the opposition benches to only 5 MPs and leave Congress with just 3 MLAs in the state.  Digambar Kamat, Michael Lobo, Delilah Lobo, Rajesh Faldesai, Kedar Naik, Sankalp Amonkar, Aleixo Sequeira, and Rudolf Fernandes are among the MLAs who would change parties.

Digambar Kamat was the Ex-Congress Chief Minister of Goa Earlier this year, during the state elections, Kamat ran the party's campaign. The Congress branch in Goa also accused him of attempting to splinter the party in the past.
27 MLAs in the forty-member house switched sides in the last assembly, with Congress taking the biggest blow,  16 of its 17 legislators ditching the party.

Ten Congress MLAs, including the then-opposition leader Chandrakant Kavlekar, joined the BJP as early as 2019 itself. Three more people joined the Trinamool Congress, led by Mamata Banerjee.

The BJP has 20 legislators while the Congress has 11 in the 40-member Goa Assembly.

The coastal state's election this year featured a close race between the BJP and Congress. All 40 seats were up for election, and the saffron party ran against the Congress and the Goa Forward Party (GFP).

Earlier, on 2 occasions their endeavors to join the BJP failed due to early intervention of Congress senior leaders, and they couldn't manage the numbers a second time.

On July 10, 2019, ten Congress MLAs including the leader of the opposition, Chandrakant Kavalekar, joined the BJP, during the final term of the BJP government. However, Kavalekar and the other six MPs lost the February 2022 Assembly election. A portion of society had expressed anger and condemnation over the incidence of the leader of the opposition joining the ruling party.

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