MARGAO: The Aam Aadmi Party has said that Goa had a good scope to promote an exchange or market for trading of MLAs on the lines of the stock exchange.
AAP’s state convener Elvis Gomes, while interacting with a group of commerce students from a city college, lamented that successive governments had redefined the art of survival in the chair, by performing different kinds of tricks to lure MLAs to jump like frogs at will, by disrespecting the verdict of the people. He said that the turnover from the transactions, of jumping from one party to another was in hundreds of crores and if Goa could start an MLA’s trading exchange, they could be traded for a much better price than they would have otherwise fetched. “Greed of the elected has always surpassed the need of the electorate. After three from Congress were released to support the BJP, it’s now the turn of the MGP to release two. Goa is always upto something when it comes to trading of MlAs. Appointment of two Deputy Chief Minister’s is a case in point” said Gomes.
He added that if the Mlas are traded through an exchange, the people of the constituency could be made eligible for a share in the amount as dividends, since the figures were running into hundreds of crores and the voters were important stake holders in the process. Gomes then gave the students an insight into the history of defections right from the time of Pratap Singh Rane, who had defected from MGP to join the Congress and become a six-time chief minister. He said that a group of defectors from Congress had also formed the PDF and tied up with MGP to form the government. Similarly, Gomes said that the split in Congress with the formation of the Goa People’s Congress had propelled Parrikar to take over as CM with a mere 10 MLAs and that there was also split in the BJP in 2005 , which led to the collapse of BJP government. The more recent exodus from the Congress and the impending desertion of MLAs from MGP showed that all these parties were sailing in the same boat and were eager to reach their destination together by helping one another. Gomes said that in all these games the people got nothing except entertainment to see MlAs outsmarting frogs in their own game. “We have reached a point of insanity by doing the same thing again and again and expecting different results” said Gomes quoting Albert Einstein. He said that voting for the same MLAs again and again but expecting them to behave differently was not possible as they had not shown a strong character to stand by the people as they had been busy filling their own coffers.
