Local Goa News

Tuesday, August 2, 2016

Oppn moves no confidence motion against govt

12 MLAs sign motion demanding a detailed discussion; say proceedings of the House are being hijacked by Chief Minister and Arlekar

PANJIM: Opposition MLAs, including the Goa Vikas Party (GVP) MLA Francisco (Mickky) Pacheco, on Tuesday moved a no confidence motion against the Laxmikant Parsekar government for trying to suppress the opposition voice on the Floor of the House.

The motion signed by 12 MLAs, including seven from the Congress, three independents, one GVP and one unattached (Atanasio Monserrate), was tabled during the ongoing session of the State Legislative Assembly, with the opposition demanding a detailed discussion on the motion.
Congress’ Mauvin Godinho and GVP’s Caetano (Caitu) Silva did not sign the motion. The legislature has 40 members – 21 BJP, three MGP and two Independents sit on the ruling benches, while 14 sit on the opposition side.
Addressing the media, Leader of the Opposition Pratapsingh Rane said, “We have taken strong objection to the way Chief minister Parsekar and former speaker Rajendra Arlekar were trying to control the Assembly proceedings. Speaker Anant Shet has completely failed to govern the session. He is not able to control the legislators.”
“There is a need for the Speaker to learn how to control the House. He should not work as a party member but as a judge,” Rane said, adding ‘though he is new in this chair, he (Shet) has experience as deputy speaker’.
Rane said that they initially wanted to move a motion against the Speaker but under the rules this requires 14 days’ notice. “Hence, Speaker is part of this government we have issued against it,” he explained.
Independent MLA Vijai Sardesai said the Speaker has failed to control the Assembly proceedings which are hijacked by the CM and former speaker Arlekar. “Both are teaching the Speaker how to run the session. This is shame,” he said.
Earlier, former Chief Minister and MLA Digambar Kamat and Independent MLA Rohan Khaunte pointed out how questions tabled on important issues like Vani Agro, beach cleaning, collection of garbage along national highway, are either left unanswered or are turned as unstarred questions.
“We had tabled a starred question on Vani Agro to be answered on July 28. However, we were informed on the same day, that the question has been answered on July 27 as unstarred and was referred to department of science and technology. The question was for the Industries Minister,” Kamat said.
Similar in the case of highway garbage collection, the starred question was kept for August 3 and now we are told it is referred as unstarred and answered on August 2. “This is nothing but suppressing our voice to ensure government misdeeds are not exposed,” he said.
The two calling attention motions called by Sardesai on iron ore transportation during the monsoon and hike in power tariff have also been rejected by the Speaker.
The motion also opposes Public Works Department Minister Ramakrishna Dhavalikar’s demand to raise water tariff by five percent on the floor of the House on Monday.

Herald Goa News

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