Team Herald
PANJIM: Amidst speculation of the possibility of the dissolution of the State Legislative Assembly this month end, Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar said that the present government would continue in office till the next one is sworn in after March 11.
As per the Article 174 of the Constitution of India, the State Legislative Assembly should meet at least once in six months to discuss and debate on various polices of the government, failing which the Assembly stands dissolved and the President’s Rule is imposed.
In the case of Goa, the last session of the Assembly was held in August 2016 and as per the rule another session should have been held before February end, this year. However, due to the Election Model Code of Conduct, imposed since January 4, the government was and is not in a position to call for a session and the failure to have a session ordinarily calls for the dissolution of the Assembly.
“The rules say that there should be an Assembly session convened after every six months. We had the last Assembly session on August 26, which means ideally we should have one session before February 26. But the time between these two was marked with the code of conduct, elections and now the counting is scheduled on March 11. Even if we want to have a session, we can’t have because of this entire procedure,” Parsekar said.
“There is no question of dissolving the Assembly. The government and the Assembly will continue till the next government is sworn in,” he stated.
Elections to the 40 assembly constituencies were held on February 4, and counting of votes will be taken up on March 11. The new government will be sworn in before March 18 and will have to immediately summon a session to present the Budget for the year 2017-18.
It is learnt that the government had moved a note to Goa Governor Mridula Sinha last month seeking exemption from holding the Assembly session due to the election procedures.
The government was to have called for a one-day session in December last year to approve the GST rates to be fixed by the Council. However, failure of the council to reach a conclusion on the rates, led to the session not being called.
Goa Assembly is now left with 34 MLAs, after six of them resigned in the wake of the elections. Also, the council of ministers has been reduced to nine after the Chief Minister sacked two of his ministers from the cabinet and another resigned.
