Cong to boycott Assembly after agreeing not to have Eid holiday
GOANEWS DESK, PANAJI | 16 October 2013 10:24 IST
Similar on the lines of the issue of restricting number of questions in the Assembly, the opposition Congress has once again agreed not to have holiday for the session on Eid and is now boycotting it.
Congress spokesman Aleixo Reginald Lourenco has said they would boycott today’s session since no holiday has been declared for the Assembly on the occasion of Eid, the festival of Muslims.
A decision apparently was taken at yesterday’s Congress Legislature Party, chaired by opposition leader Pratapsing Rane.
However, according to Speaker Rajendra Arlekar, the decision not to change the holiday was taken in consultation with Rane as well as chief minister Manohar Parrikar at the Business Advisory Committee meeting.
The shift of Eid from 14 to 16 October was known much after the business was decided and procedure of questions etc had already started, which was difficult to reverse last minute, Arlekar told goanews.com.
The Congress however feels the date could have been shifted even last minute, in order to respect religious feelings of the Muslim community.
“I wanted to visit all my Muslim well-wishers on the occasion of Eid”, said Fatorda independent MLA Vijay Sardesai.
Meanwhile, the state government has given official holiday to all the Muslim government servants today since Eid date has been shifted for today.
If there were objections, Arlekar asks why not a single legislature raised the issue since 9 October, when he placed the BAC report before the House.
He points out that the report was accepted unanimously by the whole House.
The Congress had recently raised a similar issue of restricting number of starred and unstarred questions, which later they publicly objected to while accepting the BAC report unanimously also in this regard.
