Grand Alliance fizzles out; Vijai says 'some' Opp MLAs involved in ‘setting’
GOANEWS DESK, PANAJI | 19 March 2016 20:58 IST
The Grand Alliance of non-BJP forces in the Assembly has fizzled out within five days as Vijai Sardesai, the initiator, has charged some of the opposition colleagues involved in a ‘setting’ with the ruling party.
“I am completely disappointed. We failed in co-ordinating the floor management as some members’ opposition appeared to be mere eyewash”, said Sardesai at a press conference today.
Though he did not name anybody in particular, the independent MLA sounded upset also with the behaviour of the opposition leader Pratapsing Rane, who reportedly had given his consent to fight issues in the Assembly as a united opposition.
“I am not naming anybody, people are wise enough to judge from their behaviour”, the independent legislator from Fatorda told goanews.com.
He had taken initiative in not only mobilising the opposition MLAs but also asking some key questions together, so that they win an upper slot in the list of questions and anybody among the clubbed members could opt for the key question.
The opposition succeeded in their plan and even paralysed the proceedings of the House on the first day of the budget session, on the issue of alleged beach cleaning fraud when Rohan Khaunte opted for a common question.
However, the young opposition members were seen expressing disappointment on the very next day when their clubbed question on alleged corruption in Lusofonia games, listed fifth in the list, could not come up as Rane shifted his question of Mayem to the sunset clause of Mundkar Act.
Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar jumped at this opportunity and started giving lengthy reply about the Mundkar Act, unlike his normal stand of not going beyond the ambit of the question and replying to unrelated supplementary questions.
“Our efforts of clubbing the questions together have gone waste as some opposition members wasted time on unimportant questions. You know who they are”, said Sardesai.
Assembly records show that the third day started with Vishwajeet Rane, who had two individual questions and the third one was on the coconut issue, where his name was first in the list.
Instead of opting for the third question of coconut which opposition has made a state-wide issue, Vishwajeet asked his first question on funds of the state, due to which the coconut question could not come up for discussion.
As per the Assembly rules, the member has to opt for one of the questions listed before his name, after which another member gets a chance to ask question and the members clubbed together also lose the chance of asking that question.
When asked, Sardesai said he is not charging anybody in particular but the behaviour of abandoning the common question provided enough ground to suspect that the intention behind this was very clear.
Sardesai also wondered why the ruling party was targeting only the old opposition group while allowing other opposition members to speak in the House.
“Looks like everything was pre-planned. I cannot tolerate such double games. Let everybody sit in the opposition in the next term. I am prepared for it”, said Fatorda MLA, who has already taken initiative in forming Goa Forward to defeat the BJP in the forthcoming election.
He is now planning to sit with the independents and other like-minded legislators to review the situation and plan out a viable combined opposition.
Salcette has a history of last five decades of some chieftain aspiring to be a king. If he misses the crown he is satisfied with a glittering medal of "kingmaker". Their ego is kept on bloated by sychophants(sancho panza) who have nothing to loose but only gains as they regard themselves brains trust of kingmakers. Their problem of out of pocket expenses gets solved. Kingmaker remains forever under delusion of kingmaker. Sancho Panzas then search for another Don Quixote.The story should not continue.