Team Herald
PANJIM: Opposition Independent MLAs have charged the BJP with hijacking democracy in Goa, by curtailing the time given to the Opposition MLAs to raise questions in the House.
The allegations from the opposition, mainly the Independent MLAs, who had geared up to trap the government on its various failures, is that there is complete manipulation in the new system of ballots for the Legislative Assembly Questions (LAQs).
“The system is aimed at converting Question Hour meant for the Opposition into an hour of Congratulatory Motions for the government. In the bargain people will lose faith in democracy and disruptive tendencies will get a boost,” Fatorda MLA Vijai Sardesai said.
And a look at the list of MLAs able to raise questions in the Assembly could prove these charges. There are 26 MLAs who can raise questions during the one-hour long question hour in each day’s session, which on an average takes up five questions. The assembly session is of 15 days and in the ballot draw whoever comes in the first five will possibly be able to raise questions in the assembly.
Till Tuesday, the LAQs of the first nine days had been finalized by draw of lots in which the opposition grouping of Congress MLA Aleixo Reginaldo Lourenco and Independent MLAs Vijai Sardesai, Rohan Khaunte and Naresh Sawal have hardly reached the first five in the draw lots. (See page 12)
Lourenco said that as they have a small strength in assembly they are not getting a fair chance to raise questions. “Technically what the Business Advisory Committee (BAC) is doing is correct but not morally so. More BJP MLAs are getting the chance to raise questions whereas the need is for more
Congress and Independent MLAs to do as BJP has direct access to the ministers for any work,” Lourenco said.
However, Speaker Rajendra Arlekar said, “There is no chance of any allegations, all are baseless. There is complete transparency in the system. I am not bothered about their allegations. I am here to improve the system.”
This, however, is not the first time the BJP has been accused of hijacking democracy. Curtailing questions and imposing restrictions during question hour began in 2013 say opposition members.
The first step was to prevent questions from the Opposition which was done by fixing the number of unstarred question to 15 and starred to three per MLA per session by the Legislature’s Business Advisory Committee (BAC) headed by the Speaker.
At that time, Opposition Leader Pratapsingh Rane, who is a member of the BAC, faced criticism from party legislator Atanasio (Babush) Monserrate (presently unattached) for going along with the BJP in this decision.
There was also the issue in the March 2015 Budget session where several questions whose answers were deleted or whose annexure were not made available online to the media.
When he had been questioned, the Speaker had claimed that there could be technical flaws and hence the answers got deleted. “Also if the question was not raised (but tabled) then it cannot be reported,” he said.
Regarding the annexure, the Speaker had stated that voluminous replies force them not to upload it.
BOX:
MLAs able to raise first five questions on first nine days forthcoming monsoon session
Day 1:
1. Vishnu Wagh
2. Siddharth Kunkolienkar
3. Naresh Sawal
4. Vishawjit Rane
5. Mauvin Godinho
Day 2:
1. Vishwajit Rane
2. Benjamin Silva
3. Siddharth Kunkolinekar
4. Caetano Silva
5. Naresh Sawal
Day 3:
1. Atanasio Monseratte
2. Mauvin Godinho
3. Chandrakant Kavlekar
4. Naresh Sawal
5. Rohan Khaunte
Day 4:
1. Aleixo Reginaldo Lourenco
2. Rohan Khaunte
3. Subhash Naik
4. Vishwajit Rane
5. Francisco Pacheco
Day 5:
1. Vijay Sardesai
2. Benjamin Silva
3. Vishwajit Rane
4. Siddharth Kunkolinekar
5. Rohan Khaunte
Day 6:
1. Rohan Khaunte
2. Caatano Silva
3. Pramod Sawant
4. Chandrakant Kavlekar
5. Carlos Almeida
Day 7:
1. Sushash Naik
2. Caetano Silva
3. Vishnu Wagh
4. Rohan Khaunte
5. Chandrakant Kavlekar
Day 8:
1. Michael Lobo
2. Subhash Faldesai
3. Carlos Almeida
4. Chandrakant Kavlekar
5. Pratapsingh Rane
Day 9:
1. Digambar Kamat
2. Benjamin Silva
3. Chandrakant Kavlekar
4. Subhash Faldesai
5. Rohan Khaunte
