Panaji: Goa Legislative Assembly session, summoned from July 11 onwards, will be curtailed to two weeks due to upcoming Panchayat elections.
During the Business Advisory Committee (BAC) meeting held on Thursday, Speaker Ramesh Tawadkar announced that the session would be curtailed to two weeks from the original plan of five weeks due to the panchayat elections, scheduled to be held on August 10.
Chief Minister Pramod Sawant said that the state machinery would be busy preparing for the panchayat election and hence it would be difficult to hold the full fledged session of 25 days (five weeks).
Sawant said that the State government had requested the Speaker to curtail the session to two weeks due to the workload on the government servants considering the upcoming Panchayat election.
Sawant said that it is “Easy for the opposition to demand for the full session” but considering the workload it is not possible to hold it. He said that it is mandatory for the government to pass the full Budget, which will be done during the Session.
The Chief Minister said that it is wrong to accuse the state government for not holding the long session, as “even in the big states, there are shorter sessions.”
The opposition leaders including Congress, Goa Forward Party, Aam Aadmi Party and Revolutionary Goans Party condemned the act of curtailing the session.
GFP chief Vijai Sardesai said that the Speaker and the government was “killing the democracy” and setting wrong example for the newly elected MLAs by resorting to such curtailed session.
Sardesai said that the opposition members had demanded before the Speaker that the session can be held for two days and adjourned to be summoned again in September after the Panchayat elections. “But the Speaker maintained silence and refused to heed to the demand of the opposition benches,” he said.
The Fatorda MLA said that BJP led government has been shying away from holding the lengthier sessions. In the year 2020, the session was held only for 15 days cumulatively, while in 2019 it was for 23 days, 2018 it was for 12 days and 2017 it was for 24 days.
AAP MLA Venzy Viegas said that the entire BAC meeting on Thursday was “one sided affair.” “We thought that there would be collective decision by the Speaker. But it looked like, the Speaker was prepared to curtail the Session,” he said.
MLA Viresh Borkar, representing Revolutionary Goans Party, said that there was no scope for opposition members to voice their opinion during the meeting. (GoaNewsHub)
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