TEAM HERALD
PANJIM: Even as Congress legislators and independent MLA Vijai Sardessai boycotted the Assembly session Wednesday the Speaker Rajendra Arlekar said the decision to take up business in the House on Eid on Wednesday was taken after consulting political parties, including Leader of Opposition Pratapsing Rane.
He also termed the boycott as “politicizing of the legislative functioning’ even as he appealed to legislators not to use the ‘House’ for the political gains.
Addressing the House just before question hour, Arlekar said that despite opposition members were taken into confidence on holding the business for the day, despite it being a public holiday; they had grabbed the opportunity at the last minute trying to score political brownie points.
However, this was denied by the CLP spokesman Alexio Reginaldo Lourenco who stood by the party’s decision and denied that Rane was a party to the decision.
“It is not right to use the platform like State legislative assembly for politics,” he said adding ‘there was no discussion on the issue during the entire session and suddenly last evening, the opposition benches thought of indulging in politics over the entire issue’.
“Former Chief Minister Digamber Kamat, during the session on Tuesday came to me and put up the request, and I agreed to look into it. However, none of the Congress legislators approached me after the session,” Speaker said, trying to explain his rationale.
Arlekar said that the on September 25 the Business Advisory Committee (BAC), which also saw participation of Leader of Opposition, raised no objection to the scheduled session. The BAC report was tabled on October 9 which was also adopted by all the members including the opposition benches.
The BJP-led government had announced a public holiday on Wednesday, but had asked the staff of the assembly to remain present. Also all heads of departments, except for Muslims, were also asked to remain present at the assembly.
