PANAJI
On expected lines, former minister Ramesh Tawadkar, 53, was elected and soon took over as Speaker of the Goa legislative Assembly when the House met on Tuesday.
The motion moved by Cabinet Minister Subhash Shirodkar was put to vote by Pro-tem Speaker Ganesh Gaonkar and 24 MLAs including 19 of the BJP, the two MGP MLAs and three Independents supported it.
Fifteen MLAs including the 11 of the Congress, two of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and one each of the Goa Forward Party (GFP) and Revolutionary Goans Party (RGP) opposed the motion.
Since the motion was carried, Gaonkar declared Tawadkar elected to the office of the Speaker and did not put the motion proposing election of Aleixo Sequeira as Speaker to vote.
Tawadkar was then escorted to the Speaker's chair by Chief Minister Pramod Sawant and Digambar Kamat of the Congress.
Tawadkar has won all four times on the BJP ticket and held the sports and agriculture portfolios.
He became an MLA after winning the bye-election in 2005 and then in 2007 (general elections) in the erstwhile Poinguinim constituency.
He went on to win in the delimited Canacona constituency in 2012, before winning his fourth term in the 2022 assembly elections.
