Reginald faces privilege for calling Speaker biased
GOANEWS DESK, PANAJI | 09 October 2013 18:55 IST
Acting tough against the casual attitude of young legislators, Goa speaker Rajendra Arlekar today took a Congress MLA to task for his public statement against the speaker’s chair.
The media last week reported a statement of Congress MLA Aleixo Reginald Lourenco, alleging that the speaker is biased.
The Congress legislators have been protesting against the decision of the Business Advisory Committee to restrict number of starred questions to three and 15 unstarred questions every day to each MLA.
While addressing a press conference, Lourenco was asked by the media whether the speaker is biased.
If not literally, Lourenco had replied: “Doesn’t it mean the same thing?”
The statement was reported as Lourenco calling the speaker biased.
Taking serious note of these allegations, Arlekar today sought explanation regarding the statement, asking whether it is true or false and apologise to the House if it was true.
“If you do not apologise, I will refer the matter to the Privileges Committee,” said Arlekar.
Lourenco tried explaining the speaker how the media sometimes asks tricky questions, but the speaker was in no mood to listen to explainations.
When Lourenco asked for time to give his explaination in writing, Arlekar immediately referred the matter to the privileges committee.
He also reminded the House that he had cautioned the members in the past about such behavior, making special reference to Fatorda MLA Vijay Sardesai.
“The person sitting in this chair in not Arlekar, but is the chair all the members should respect”, he said, while justifying his action.
