Goa Opposition walks out over disallowing queries in Question Hour

Panaji, August 3: Opposition members in Goa Legislative Assembly today staged a walk out from the House protesting state government's action of disallowing their questions during the Question hour.

The Assembly witnessed verbal duel between Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar and Opposition benches led by Leader of Opposition Pratapsinh Rane when the House assembled for the day this morning.

Congress legislator Digambar Kamat, Independent legislators Vijai Sardesai and Rohan Khaunte pointed out that their questions are being disallowed on the floor of the House.

"(The) Chief Secretary should be summoned in the Assembly for disallowing important questions," Sardesai demanded. Parsekar, defending the government, said, "it is wrong to disallow questions. But some questions are asked to wrong departments."

He suggested that though questions are disallowed, the issues can be raised through calling attention motion or during the speeches on demands for grants of various departments. However, Opposition benches refused to buy his statement. Rane said injustice was being meted out to the members of the House.

"We have every right to know the replies for the questions we have asked," Rane said recommending that state Assembly reverted to its old ways of giving replies through hard copy rather than current system of e-assembly (which gives the replies online).

Parsekar said, "If we revert, the entire exercise of e-assembly will go in vain." Unhappy with Parsekar's reply, the Opposition MLAs walked out of the House. Reacting to this, the Chief Minister said the Opposition was trying to get media attention by indulging in such tactics.

PTI