PANAJI
Goa legislative assembly Speaker, Rajesh Patnekar is expected to pronounce his order in the two disqualification pleas filed by Congress State president Girish Chodankar and MGP MLA Sudin Dhavlikar, against a set of 12 MLAs who switched sides to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party in 2018.
That he would pass orders was conveyed earlier last week to the Supreme Court of India by Patnekar through his counsel, Tushar Mehta, who is also Solicitor General of India.
Two sets of legislators -- 10 of the Congress and two of the MGP -- had switched allegiance to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 2019.
Chodankar had filed the disqualification petition against the 10 ex-Congress MLAs before the Speaker on grounds that the split and merger into the BJP violated provisions of the Xth Schedule of the Constitution.
Chodankar had also approached the Supreme Court of India asking it to direct the Goa Speaker to expedite the hearings in his disqualification petition.
Dhavlikar meanwhile, who remained the sole MGP MLA had file a similar plea against the two ex-MGP MLAs -- Deputy Chief Minister Manohar Ajgaonkar and PWD Minister Deepak Pauskar.
Dhavlikar, who was himself the Deputy Chief Minister in the Sawant-led cabinet was sacked in 2019 as soon as Ajgaonkar and Pauskar split and joined the BJP.
The move of mid-July 2019 to split and merge in the BJP of the 10 ex-Congress MLAs led by current DyCM Chandrakant Kavlekar, who was then the CLP leader and occupied the cabinet-rank Leader of Opposition post, had also led to the sacking from the cabinet of the then other Deputy Chief Minister Vijai Sardesai, his two Goa Forward Party colleagues, Jayesh Salgaonkar and Vinoda Palyekar, besides Independent Porvorim legislator Rohan Khaunte.
