PANAJI
The Congress State president, Amit Patkar, on Friday formally filed a disqualification petition against the eight MLAs who claimed to have split and joined the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in mid-September.
The petition was filed on behalf of Patkar by the party’s lawyer-legislator Carlos Ferreira Alvares. Two more disqualification petitions have been filed against the same set of eight MLAs by former GPCC president Girish Chodankar and another Congress worker.
“Today have filed a disqualification petition against the eight MLAs who defected from Congress and joined the BJP. Though they had 2/3 number of MLAs it cannot be called as merger of the original party. Under the 10th schedule, it speaks of merger of original party,” Ferreira told journalists after filing the petition before the Speaker’s office.
Ferreira, who is a senior lawyer and has been Goa’s Advocate General in the past said: “Since the grounds are similar to the disqualification petition filed against the 10 MLAs who had defected in the previous Assembly term, there are chances that the Speaker may give the same ruling.”
Alvares said, it is an issue of importance for the nation and hence it will be the Supreme Court of India which will have to finally decide.
It may be recalled that eight legislators of the Congress led by the then Opposition Leader Michael Lobo and former chief minister Digambar Kamat had claimed that they have split from the party and merged with the BJP on September 14.
Apart from Lobo and Kamat, the group consisted of Lobo’s wife Delilah, Aleixo Sequeira, Kedar Naik, Rudolf Fernandes, Sankalp Amonkar and Rajesh Phaldesai.
The group had met that day in Lobo’s chamber at the Goa Legislative Assembly complex where they passed a ‘resolution’ giving effect to the split and subsequent ‘merger’ with the BJP.
The documents were filed before Goa Speaker Ramesh Tawadkar who acceded to the group’s demand and redesignated their sitting arrangement in the House.
After the February 14 assembly elections this year, the BJP had 20 MLAs and the Congress 11. Two MLAs each belong to the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP), one apiece to the Goa Forward Party (GFP) and the Revolutionary Goans Party (RGP) while there are three Independents.
The defection of the eight MLAs in mid-September has brought down the Congress number to three and the total strength of the Oppostion to seven (AAP with two, GFP and RGP one each).
