PANAJI
Amid the looming shadow of the government v/s Opposition stand-off on the Mhadei row, the 4-day winter session of the Goa legislative assembly is set to commence on Monday at 10 am with the customary start of the year address to the House by the Governor, P S Sreedharan Pillai.
Pillai's address is the only agenda before the House on Monday and is expected to roll out a 'state of the State' report card from the government's point of view and also reveal policy initiatives and the direction the Pramod Sawant dispensation intends to take the development process in the year ahead.
It will be the first session of the House after its composition got a dramatic twist with the Opposition benches dwindling to a politically disjointed seven after eight of the eleven Congress legislators, including the then Opposition Leader Michael Lobo jumped aisles in September last year.
The Congress' Yuri Alemao is the new Leader of the Opposition and will take his seat for the first time on Monday. He heads the three-member legislative wing of his party.
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) with two members and one legislator apiece of the Goa Forward Party (GFP) and Revolutionary Goans Party (RGP) collectively make up the seven numbers in the Opposition benches.
The treasury benches on the other hand have a strength of 32 (minus the Speaker) including 27 of the BJP, two of the MGP and three supporting independents.
Up against such a brutal numerical majority of the government, the Alemao-led Opposition faces a daunting task in holding the Sawant-led government accountable and raising crucial issues affecting the State.
Legislature department sources said a total of 600-odd questions have been tabled mostly by the Opposition MLAs and the second batch of supplementary demands will be brought in by the government to replenish the budgetary shortfalls in some government departments for the remainder of the current fiscal.
The Mhadei row, however, is expected to dominate proceedings this winter session with the raging issue which is dominating the public discourse these days, set to be discussed and debated on the last day (January 19).
