Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLA from Canacona, Ramesh Tawadkar, was elected as the Speaker of the eighth Goa Legislative Assembly on Tuesday.
Pro-tem Speaker Ganesh Gaonkar moved the motion on the election for the Speaker when the House began today.
Given the BJP’s strength in the House — with the party having 20 out of 40 of the MLAs, and the support of independents and the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) — Mr. Tawadkar’s victory was more or less certain when he filed his nomination on March 27.
He won by nine votes, defeating the Opposition Congress candidate Aleixo Sequeira by 24 votes to 15.
Accepting defeat, Mr. Sequeira, the MLA from Nuvem, praised the Speaker’s “humility” and urged Mr. Tawadkar “to give to justice to the Opposition during the conduct of the Assembly”.
There were a total of five nominations for the two candidates, with three for Mr. Tawadkar (proposed by independent MLA Aleixo Reginaldo Lourenco and seconded by the BJP’s Subhash Phaldessai; proposed by BJP MLA Subhash Shirodkar and seconded by Mr. Reginaldo; while the third was proposed by the BJP’s Jennifer Monserrate and seconded by her party colleague Nilkanth Halarnkar), and two for Mr. Sequeira (proposed by veteran Congressman Digambar Kamat and seconded by Congress MLA Michael Lobo; proposed by Congressman Kedar Naik and seconded by Sankalp Amonkar).
Chief Minister Pramod Sawant, in the congratulatory motion following Mr. Tawadkar’s election, praised the newly-elected Speaker’s two-decades of work in the political and social fields not just in his constituency Canacona, but throughout Goa.
Among the Opposition, only the Congress’ ally, the Goa Forward Party (GFP) chief Vijai Sardesai, struck a discordant note during the congratulatory motion when he stressed on the importance of the Speaker remaining neutral at a time when the BJP had secured a decisive majority in the State.
“I expect you to note down the issues raised by the Opposition, especially as 75% of the Opposition MLAs are new MLAs… It is your duty to give them orientation. While the neutrality of the Speaker is a matter of public debate, those donning the Speaker’s mantle do not get elected again,” Mr. Sardesai said.
This led to a furore with BJP MLAs hitting out at Mr. Sardesai and demanding his statement about the Speaker not getting re-elected be expunged. Mr. Sardesai, who is known as a fiery Opposition leader, nonetheless stuck to his statement.
The GFP chief’s aggressiveness is in stark contrast to the Congress, which has yet to name its Legislative Party leader despite the Assembly session already being underway.
Mr. Sawant and eight other BJP MLAs were sworn-in as Chief Minister and Cabinet Ministers on Monday in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other BJP heavyweights.
After chairing the first meeting of the new Cabinet, Mr. Sawant said that the Cabinet had decided to formulate the three free-cylinder scheme as promised in the BJP poll manifesto from the new financial year.
He also said that a priority of the new government was to restart mining as soon as was possible.
