“Delhi is unhappy with you,” is the message All India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretary in charge of Goa Jagmeet Singh Brar is said to have delivered to Kamat on Wednesday.

“He told him quite bluntly that the party is worried about its image over the mining scam and his failure to implement the medium of instruction,” a senior Cabinet minister told Deccan Herald.

Kamat’s body language at the press briefing gave it away. Flanked by Brar and AICC secretary T Sudhakaran Reddy, a crestfallen chief minister refused to take media questions.
The pressure for Kamat to be replaced before the state elections is growing within the Goa Congress Legislature Party (CLP).  Speaker Pratap Singh Rane who is seen as an alternative, drove 80 km to meet with Brar at the Taj Exotica, Benaulim on Wednesday, though Rane insisted that his meeting had nothing to do with “a leadership change”.

But Public Works Department Minister Churchill Alemao and MLA Dayanand Narvekar were more forthcoming. Narvekar told Brar that a chief minister tainted by serious allegations over mining illegalities should be asked to resign.

Kamat’s administration is also under a cloud over the recent denotification of 36,800 sq mts of land for the Dabolim airport’s expansion.