PANJIM: As Goa Assembly Speaker refused to meet the Opposition MLAs, the United Opposition on Tuesday called on Governor PS Sreedharan Pillai seeking his intervention in extending the duration of the upcoming winter session of the State Legislative Assembly, to be held from January 16-19.
The delegation led by Leader of Opposition Yuri Alemao urged Governor to ensure that the “democratic rights of the Members of Legislative Assembly are protected and safeguarded at all times”.
Congress MLAs Alton D’Costa and Adv Carlos Ferreira, GFP MLA Vijai Sardesai, AAP MLA Venzy Viegas and RGP MLA Viresh Borkar were part of the delegation.
In their representation, the MLAs have demanded that the duration of the session be extended by two or three weeks and withdrawal of the Assembly Bulletin restricting the information ‘on past history’ to five years only.
They pointed out that as per Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business of the Assembly, the Private Member’s Business should be taken up on every Friday. They also said that if there is no sitting of the House on any such Friday, the Speaker consults the Leader of the House that any other day in the week should be allotted for transaction of Private Member’s Business.
“In view of the same, we strongly demand that the Private Member’s Business must be held during the session,” they said.
The MLAs urged Governor to ensure that opposition legislators are given equal opportunity and enough time to raise, participate and discuss on various issues of public importance and to ensure that the replies to each question are provided 48 hours in advance.
Post meeting, Alemao alleged the state government is “rattled with the unity of the Opposition” and curtailed the session to exclude the Private Member’s Day at the behest of the Chief Minister Pramod Sawant.
“The government is worried that we will expose corruption if the session is allowed to be run for a longer duration,” he said.
Further, MLA Sardesai said that Governor, as guardian of the House, has assured that he will intervene to end the situation created by the arbitrary and unjustifiable decisions of the Speaker, who deems to be unduly influenced by the ruling party.
