the goan I network
PANAJI
An otherwise mundane democratic exercise, Tuesday’s contest for the post of Goa legislative assembly’s Speaker got a massive doze of political fizz and intensity with the entry into the fray of octogenarian Congress legislator Pratapsing Raoji Rane.
The contest will now be a straight one between Rane and Bicholim MLA Rajesh Patnekar of the BJP who has been fielded by the ruling coalition.
The election will be conducted with Deputy Speaker Michael Lobo who will preside taking up each of the motions proposing the two candidates by a voice-vote and/or if necessary by division.Rane was fielded by the Congress after he emerged the unanimous choice of the Opposition party whose legislators formally met in the chamber of Opposition Leader Chandrakant Kavlekar at the legislative complex at Porvorim early on Monday morning.
AICC secretary in-charge of Goa, Dr Chella Kumar, also attended the meeting called to draw up the strategy for the Speaker’s election.
The notice of the motion proposing that Rane be nominated as a candidate for the election of the Speaker was presented to the Legislature Secretary shortly before the 12 noon deadline ended by Tivim MLA Nilkanth Halarnkar. Nuvem MLA Wilfred D’Sa seconded and Rane affixed his signature consenting to serve as Speaker.
Kavlekar, meanwhile, told The Goan, that the party is expecting legislators to vote for Rane owing to his seniority, five decades of legislative experience and his long stints both as Chief Minister and Speaker.
Rane himself has also made an appeal to members from across the aisle, urging legislators from the treasury benches to support him.
He has been Speaker of the Goa legislative assembly on two previous occasions and
under the reign of four different chief ministers. He has also served multiple terms as chief minister and has been a member of the legislative assembly incessantly from 1972, the year he made his debut by winning from the then Sattari constituency.
He was first elected Speaker in June 1999, after Luizinho Faleiro took over as Chief Minister and continued presiding over the legislature during that term when first Francisco Sardinha and later Manohar Parrikar took over the reigns of government. Later, post the 2007 general elections, Rane was again elected the Speaker and served a full five years in that position when Digamber Kamat completed a five-year term as chief minister.
Meanwhile, Patnekar thanked his BJP and ruling coalition allies for fielding him to contest the Speaker’s post and expressed confidence of winning it.
The BJP-led coalition of Chief Minister Pramod Sawant has a collective strength of 24 MLAs on paper: 17 MLAs of the BJP, three of Deputy Chief Minister Vijai Sardesai’s Goa Forward Party, three Independents, and the lone MGP legislator Ramkrishna (Sudin) Dhavlikar.
On the other side of the aisle, the Opposition benches are filled up with 15 Congress MLAs and Churchill Alemao, the lone legislator of the Nationalist Congress Party.
The Speaker’s post fell vacant after Sawant quit to take over as Chief Minister following the death of Parrikar in mid-March. Since then, Lobo who is the Deputy Speaker, has been officiating.
A VETERAN
Rane has been Speaker of the Goa legislative assembly on two previous occasions and under the reign of four different chief ministers
He was first elected Speaker in June 1999. Post the 2007 general elections, Rane was again elected and served a full five years in that position
