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For Luizinho Faleiro the battle has just begun

Sandesh Prabhudesai in Panaji

With the support of three non-BJP parties -- the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party, the United Goans Democratic Party and the Goa Rajiv Congress -- Goa's latest chief minister Luizinho Faleiro has succeeded in getting a Congress government off the ground. Five cabinet ministers were sworn in along with him today morning.

However, not all is safe yet. Faleiro will have to win the confidence vote, which he plans to move within a week.

The new chief minister has kept two vacancies in the cabinet pending. When the vacancies are filled the cabinet strength will be eight, two more than that committed in the party's election manifesto.

Though he does not disclose when the vacancies will be filled, it will definitely not be before the confidence vote.

His cabinet includes two former chief ministers, Ravi Naik and Churchill Alemao, and two former ministers, Dayanand Narvekar and Francisco Sardinha, besides former pradesh Congress committee chief Nirmala Sawant.

Another former chief minister, Pratapsing Rane, has been made the speaker.

Though everything went off smoothly at the swearing-in ceremony at the Cabo Raj Bhavan this morning, there were discreet rumblings of discontent that could be discerned beneath the surface.

Faleiro still claims that the Congress in Goa is united. Actually it was doubtful if all the legislators would even attend the swearing-in ceremony.

The whole picture, however, changed when suddenly the three non-Congress parties declared their ''issue-based support'' to the Faleiro government.

Faleiro later on claimed that he had done a fairly good job in selecting his cabinet colleagues by applying geographical and representative criteria.

Not all agreed. "This is an injustice done to the Other Backwards Community", quipped one former minister angrily after the ceremony.

In order to calm down potential dissenters, Faleiro has now announced that he would create two posts of parliamentary secretaries for the legislators, besides one deputy speaker's post, in addition to the two ministerial berths yet to be filled.

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