Tuesday, 5 April 2011

HOUSE ADJOURNED OVER MONSERRATE ISSUE

PANJIM: The Goa state Legislative Assembly on Tuesday witnessed noisy scenes forcing the Speaker to adjourn the House till afternoon after Opposition benches demanded sacking of controversial Education Minister Atanasio Monserrate.
Leader of Opposition Manohar Parrikar had given a notice for adjournment motion to discuss the detention of Monserrate at the Mumbai airport on Saturday for allegedly carrying foreign and Indian currency beyond permissible limits on his way to Dubai.
When the House proceedings began, Speaker of Legislative Assembly Pratapsingh Rane refused to allow the adjournment motion and instead called for the 'Question Hour'.  He said the rule does not permit the adjournment motion. Parrikar said if Speaker wants, he has powers to suspend the Question Hour and take up the adjournment motion, which is crucial to discuss the conduct of the controversial minister.
"Something wrong has happened in respect to the member of the House. We are demanding the suspension of Question Hour," the BJP leader said.
As the din continued, Goa Chief Minister Digambar Kamat stood up to spell corrections in the answers tabled during the Question Hour.
The Opposition benches, however, remained adamant over their demand. "There is no meaning to those questions (raised during Question Hour). The biggest question is whose money, the minister was carrying," Parrikar said.
BJP legislator, Laxmikant Parsekar, who heads the party organisation in the state, said the issue is significant as for the last two days, there has been a debate on it all over.  "We demand that the minister step down. We can't expect this conduct from the Education Minister of a state," he said.
Amidst noisy scenes, Kamat stood up again to read out the corrections, but Opposition benches rushed to the Well of the House, following which the Speaker adjourned it till 2.30 pm. – PTI

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.