Agnelo Pereira
With a depleted Opposition, the Treasury benches have been facing an easy outing during the crucial Question Hour in the current assembly session thus far. Kamat, however, has excelled in patches to pin-point to the chair when proceedings were diverging from the Rules of business and Conduct of the House and also exhibited great camaraderie among colleagues across party lines.
The five-member Congress, the largest Opposition group in the House, has four former chief ministers in its ranks who have got elected to the Assembly repeatedly for several terms, but yet none of them are seemingly fitting in the boots of a robust leader.
In fact, on several occasions, the Opposition instead of asking questions is offering suggestions to the government side, reducing it to a “Suggestion Hour” rather than the Question Hour, otherwise a parliamentary procedure, pregnant with opportunity to put Ministers on the mat.
The Leader of Opposition, Digambar Kamat is seemingly equipped with good homework on issues and at times raises relevant questions. Yet somehow, he seems to fail in pushing the government in any spot of bother, despite having the ammunition for it.
Forget about striking an understanding for a floor management among other opposition parties, there appeared to be dearth of tactics and strategies among the five Congress MLAs, and they have wavered with random questions instead of pointed ones.
As usual, it was left to the youthful Curtorim MLA, Aleixo Reginaldo Lourenco, in his third term in the House, to stand out among the the Congress lot, but he too has fallen short on depth and subject matter on issues.
Call it strategy or just chance, there has been a sharp drop in the number of questions taken up for discussion during Question Hour this time around, compared to previous assembly sessions.
“In the past maximum number of questions were taken up in the space of one hour, which has been now confined to just two to three questions. Most of the legislators have started giving speeches during the Question Hour. Secondly, the Speaker has been liberal instead of sticking to the three supplementary rules,” according to Sagar Jawdekar, Resident Editor of Marathi Daily Tarun Bharat, who has been covering Assembly proceedings for nearly three decades.
In another departure from conventions in this session, some MLAs failed to be present in the House when their starred questions were listed to be taken up during the Question Hour and trooped in only after these were called out by the Speaker, forfeiting their chance to tackle the issues they wished to. Understandably, the nature of these ‘missed out’ questions were such that they could potentially have given the government some anxious and embarrassing moments.
For example, Tivim MLA, Nilkant Halarnkar failed to remain present in the House on July 16 when the question he had tabled pertaining to offshore casinos was called out.
Considering that this Assembly session was Dr Pramod Sawant’s first as the Chief Minister, if the two brief ones to get through a trust vote and elect the Speaker, he has come good while defending some of his stuttering ministers on several occasions, clearing the government’s position on specific issues.
“CM, Dr Pramod Sawant has allowed his ministers to reply unlike former chief minister, Manohar Parrikar who interrupted them and answered their questions,” said Vasudev Pagi, another senior journalist currently covering the legislative proceedings for daily Lokmat.
Among the ministers, Vishwajit Rane, Mauvin Godinho and Nilesh Cabral have stood out and confidently tackled some tough questions thrown up by the Opposition.
