Panaji, Apr 19 (IANS): Congress legislators attending pujas or functions organised by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will not be entertained in the future, Goa Congress president Amit Patkar said on Tuesday.

Patkar issued the diktat, weeks after his party's first-time MLA Rajesh Phaldesai attended a puja at the state BJP headquarters on the occasion of the political outfit's founding day earlier this month. Phaldesai, Patkar said, had been censured for his actions.

"We have spoken to him and we have told him that next time, not to repeat such mistakes," Patkar told a press conference in Panaji on Tuesday.

Phaldesai's presence at the BJP do had caused a stir, considering the exodus of Congress legislators to the BJP from 2017-2022. Between 2017-2019 In the first two years alone 13 out of the party's 17 MLAs had quit the party to join the BJP.

Patkar claimed that Phaldesai visited the ruling party's office out of a sense of naivete.

"We have spoken to him and you also have to understand. 8 of them are newly elected MLAs and they did not know. He only went for a puja, which is why he went," Patkar said.