TEAM HERALD
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PANJIM: The vroom of legislators’ bikes again rent the Friday air at the Goa Vidhan Sabha but this time the five MLAs were riding with the law and wearing helmets.
After being fined, as a matter of principle, for violating the helmet rule a week ago, Fisheries Minister Avertano Furtado, four Independent MLAs – Rohan Khaunte, Benjamin Silva, Carlos Almeida and Naresh Sawal, and Goa Vikas Party legislator Francisco Pacheco rode to the assembly in good spirits, but wearing headgear.
Almeida had BJP MLA Rajan Naik riding pillion, but he too was wearing a helmet, although it is not mandatory in Goa for the pillion rider to wear headgear.
BJP MLAs Glenn Ticlo, Pramod Sawant and Nilesh Cabral, who were part of the ride last week, were bailed out of the adventure this Friday, presumably after the media publicity.
Speaking to media persons, Fisheries Minister Avertano Furtado said that they had deliberately come on bikes this Friday wearing helmet as ‘they had realized their mistake’.
“Nobody is above the law. We are lawmakers and we have to abide by the rules,” Furtado said.
A total of nine MLAs, including MLAs who were riding MLAs, were part of the first expedition last Friday, that received front page publicity in most dailies on cut headlines on news channels. Pacheco, Ticlo, Almeida, Khaunte and Furtado were fined by transport department for riding their gleaning machines along the national highway without wearing helmets.
