Goa meeting speaker Ramesh Tawadkar on Friday dismissed the disqualification petition filed by the Congress towards eight of its MLAs who defected to the ruling BJP in 2022.
The disqualification petition was filed by former Goa Congress chief Girish Chodankar towards MLAs Digambar Kamat, Aleixo Sequeira, Sankalp Amonkar, Michael Lobo, Delilah Lobo, Kedar Naik, Rudolf Fernandes and Rajesh Faldesai. The eight MLAs joined the BJP on September 14, 2022, taking the ruling get together’s energy within the 40-member meeting to 28.
Chodankar, in his petition, had sought that the speaker disqualify these eight MLAs beneath Para 2 of the 10th Schedule learn with Article 191 of the Structure on the bottom that they’d voluntarily given up the membership of the unique get together (Congress) on the tickets of which they’d contested for the eighth Goa legislative meeting and had gained.
“It’s undisputed incontrovertible fact that respondents have been duly elected because the members of Indian Nationwide Congress for the current meeting and at the moment are affiliated to the Bharatiya Janata Get together,” Chodankar stated within the petition filed by advocate Abhijit Gosavi.
The petition contended there was no legitimate merger on this case as the dual requirement of merger of political get together to be agreed by two-third of members of the legislature get together was not happy.
“Para four of the 10th Schedule of the Structure doesn’t ponder merger of the political get together to the legislature get together. Such a merger is opposite to the article of the 10th Schedule of the Structure. Within the current case, there isn’t any dispute that the unique political get together (Congress) has not merged,” he stated within the plea.
Advocate Parag Rao, representing the eight MLAs, nevertheless, stated the speaker, by a communication on September 14, 2022, has recorded that the eight MLAs handed a decision to merge the Congress legislature get together with the BJP.
Rao additional stated the BJP, by conduct, has accepted this merger because it has made a few of these MLAs ministers within the state authorities.
Dismissing the disqualification petition, speaker Tawadkar dominated a member of the meeting shall not be disqualified the place his unique political get together merges with one other political get together.
“In easy phrases, upon the merger of the unique political get together of the elected member with one other political get together, the elected member won’t face disqualification in both contingency i.e whether or not he chooses to go along with the merger or disagrees with the identical,” the speaker dominated.
The speaker stated disqualification on floor of defection doesn’t apply in case of merger.
