Goa Speaker's notice on disqualification petition

Panaji, July 29: Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) today reiterated its support to the nascent Goa Democratic Alliance (GDA) that claimed to form government even as it received notice, as expected, from the office of the Legislative Assembly Speaker regarding a disqualification petition filed against PWD minister Ramakrishna Dhavlikar.

The MGP leadership had submitted copies of the minutes of the presidium to the Speaker earlier in the day that favoured withdrawal of its support to Digambar Kamat-led government and extended support to the GDA.

The party suspects that the speaker may ''restrain'' the MGP members from voting in the crucial trial of strength in the House tomorrow so that he could cast his discretionary ''tie'' vote with both sides having a strength of 18.

Disclosing this to mediapersons in a hurriedly convened press conference tonight, the party president Pandurang Raut, minister Dhavlikar and other office bearers took serious exception to the speaker acting at the behest of the Congress to bully the opposition.

The founder member of the Save Goa Front(SGF), a coalition partner of the GDA Mesquitta also condemned the action of the Speaker Pratapsinh Rane with 27 years of experience in the field saying it was ''unethical, immoral, illegal and undemocratic''.

''The speaker had no jurisdiction over the matters outside the House and one party had nothing to do with the other party's decisions. The anti-defection law is invoked only when the party leaders complain against the legislators for violating the whip if any.

In the current case, the MGP had been fully backing the decision of the two MGP legislators in withdrawing the support to the ruling coalition.

Speaker, he said, had no business to call the minutes book of the MGP and fall a prey to the machinations of the Congress. He advised the MGP to lodge a police complaint for illegally taking the party records.

The MGP general secretary Pradip Naik said he was ''confused'' yesterday evening on receipt of the notice from the Speaker's office in response to the disqualification petition filed by Agnelo Fernandes (Congress) and hurriedly submitted the party's minutes books of June/July months of the three people who brought the notice without confirming who they were.

He had actually disappeared from the party office yesterday evening but surfaced today with the party thinking of lodging a police complaint and suspending him for unauthorised act.

Mr Raut later told UNI that the party would decide soon whether to file a criminal complaint or not against the speaker's office.

UNI