PANAJI
In his second term as legislator, Ganesh Gaonkar, was on Thursday elected the Speaker at a special session of the Goa legislative assembly after it adopted a resolution to that effect which was moved by Chief Minister Pramod Sawant.
Sawant's motion proposing Gaonkar for the Speaker's post was put to vote by Deputy Speaker Joshua D'Souza who was presiding after another motion moved by Leader of the Opposition Yuri Alemao proposing the name of Quepem MLA, Altone D'Costa was defeated.
Although D'Souza announced the defeat of the Alemao-sponsored motion proposing D'Costa's name by a 32-7 vote count with all seven Opposition legislators standing up in support, there were only 31 MLAs including the three Independents who stood up in the treasury benches.
Taleigao MLA Jennifer Monserrate, reportedly indisposed, was absent from the House when the vote was counted.
The post of the Speaker had fallen vacant after Ramesh Tawadkar quit the post to join the Sawant-led Cabinet last month.
The special session was convened by Governor P Ashok Gajapathi Raju on Thursday for the single point agenda of electing the new Speaker.
Apart from the motion moved by Sawant and seconded by Tourism Minister Rohan Khaunte which was adopted and resulted in Gaonkar's elevation to the Speaker's position, four similar motions were also moved by four Cabinet ministers -- Vishwajit Rane, Ravi Naik, Atanasio (Babush) Monserrate and Ramkrishna (Sudin) Dhavalikar.
All the four minister-sponsored motions however were not taken up for voting and permitted to lapse since Gaonkar was already elected following the adoption of the Sawant-sponsored motion.
Following the formality of the election, Gaonkar was then escorted to the Speaker's chair by the Chief Minister and the Leader of the Opposition.
Both, Sawant and Alemao then gave brief congratulatory speeches and expressed confidence that with his administrative and legislative experience he would conduct the business of the House fairly and uphold the dignity of the constitutional position.
Gaonkar was also briefly the pro-tem Speaker after the 2022 assembly elections and administered the oath of office to all the other 39 elected legislators.
He had first entered the Goa legislative assembly in 2012 winning from the Sanvordem constituency on a BJP ticket but then lost in 2017 to MGP's Deepak Pauskar. At the 2022 assembly elections he made a comeback. He had also contested the 1999 assembly elections from Sanvordem on a Congress ticket but narrowly lost to the BJP's Vinay Tendulkar then.
