PANAJI: Goa meeting speaker Ramesh Tawadkar on Friday dismissed a petition looking for disqualification of eight Congress MLAs in 2022 who converted to the Bharatiya Janata Occasion (BJP), reasoning {that a} lawmaker shall not be disqualified the place his authentic political celebration merges with one other political celebration
“In easy phrases, upon the merger of the unique political celebration of the elected member with one other political celebration, the elected member is not going to face disqualification in both contingency i.e whether or not he chooses to go together with the merger or disagrees with the identical,” the speaker mentioned in his ruling, based on information company PTI.
The disqualification petition was filed by former Goa Congress chief Girish Chodankar in opposition to 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 celebration’s energy within the 40-member meeting to twenty-eight.
The speaker famous that the eight legislators had handed a decision to merge the Congress legislature celebration with the BJP, and that disqualification on floor of defection doesn’t apply in case of merger.
Lawyer Abhijit Gosavi, who appeared for the previous Congress chief in proceedings earlier than the speaker, mentioned the choice was “on anticipated strains.”
“The speaker has dismissed the petition. We anticipated nothing extra. The one silver lining is that after numerous efforts during the last two years, lastly a choice has come. Because the determination is there, now we’ll take steps to make sure that the right legislation in regard to disqualification of defectors is laid down within the SC,” Gosavi mentioned
Petitioner Girish Chodankar mentioned that he would search authorized steering earlier than deciding the subsequent plan of action.
“The speaker who himself welcomed the Congress MLAs into the BJP is now the decide to determine what he had accomplished again then is appropriate or not. This isn’t in tune with the anti-defection legislation, which has now been decreased to a legislation for defections,” Chodankar mentioned.
Aleixo Sequeira, who switched from the Congress to the BJP, welcomed the speaker’s determination saying he was assured that the speaker wouldn’t fault their transfer. “We had studied the legislation, we didn’t simply bounce into the hearth,” Sequeira mentioned.
