On Tuesday, the Opposition once again created ruckus in the Goan Assembly over violence in Manipur. After seven of the Opposition MLAs were suspended for 24 hours on Monday, the respective MLAs came back to the House promptly at 12.30 pm on Tuesday and repeated their demand. The Opposition MLAs ran to the well of the House in front of the Speaker and persistently demanded to have a discussion on the issue of violence in Manipur. When the Opposition reached the Assembly, the business post Question Hour session was underway which was obstructed. Leader of Opposition Yuri Alemao, Vijay Sardesai and other five MLAs were not in the mood to listen to the Speaker or the Chief Minister. At last the Business of the House went ahead after it was decided to hold a meeting between the Speaker, chief minister and the leaders of the Opposition parties. This should be considered an achievement for the Opposition.
On Monday the opposition not only disrupted the Business of the House but also tried to stop Mandrem MLA Jeet Arolkar when he was speaking. They grabbed papers from him, pushed aside his microphone and even put a marshal’s hat on his head. In short, they did everything they could in their power to insist on having the discussion. This is a weapon that the Opposition used to persist with their demand. BJP too was using the same weapon when they were in Opposition. Hence, no single entity can be blamed in this as such things will continue to happen. However, these things have to be done by not crossing and disrespecting the legal and constitutional frame. Opposition’s behaviour till shouting slogans and demonstrating with placards was acceptable but their behaviour with Jeet Arolkar was inappropriate. That being said, the action taken by the Speaker to suspend the Opposition MLAs was also a little too much.
Law Minister Nilesh Cabral and chief minister Dr Pramod Sawant were insistent on this punishment. It’s then that the Speaker suspended the Opposition MLAs for seven days. Later he reduced the suspension in the evening till Tuesday 12.30 pm. That means even the Speaker felt that the penalty was more than what they deserved. In fact, for laymen, pushing the Opposition members out of the House through marshals was a punishment enough. Because one cannot imagine the entire Opposition being absent from the Assembly for two days. In the evening session on Monday, there were discussions planned over demands of various departments. There were cut motions from the Opposition as well but there was no Opposition themselves in the House to present them. Generally after a minister keeps the demands of his department in front of the House for approval, Opposition suggest cut motions and only then the demands are discussed. But this procedure did not take place on Monday as only ruling party’s members were present in the Assembly. It would not be ideal in a democracy for the government to present the demands, to have discussion and to approve them on their own. Some even questioned how demands can be approved without cut motions.
Of course, the demands can be approved by just having a discussion over it but the Constitution has thoughtfully given the Opposition the right of expressing their views and keeping tabs on the government when it comes to expenditure. The provision of cut motion is so pivotal that it can lead to the collapse of the government if it gets approved. Shashikala Tai Kakodkar’s government had once fallen due to the approval of such cut motions on demands. The ruling party has to make sure that they are in majority or that all their elected members are present in the House during the discussion. However, today anything is possible if one has the majority. Of course, the incidents of suspending MLAs have not taken place recently. BJP had obstructed the Governor’s address speech when they were in the Opposition. They had created ruckus by showing placards during the then governor S C Jamir’s speech but none of them were suspended. Similar incident had happened when Dr Jack Sequeira was leader of the Opposition too. Sequeira and his party members were suspended for a period. However, this was during a time when the politicians had respect for the democratic traditions. Some unnecessary words would be omitted from their usage in the House. The words which were omitted then seem extremely mild now. Today’s members of the legislative assembly use words which are objectionable but no one pays attention to that. Of course, the times are changing and one has to accept it. However, using one parameter to judge oneself and another parameter to judge the Opposition is unfair.
