Rupesh Samant
Panaji, Jul 15: Amidst the last minute changes in the state cabinet, Goa government will face more than a fortnight long monsoon session of the legislative assembly which begins from today.
The session will be held between July 15 to August 9, which will be the first ever longest session of the government led by Pramod Sawant.
Sawant on Saturday has replaced four ministers from his cabinet, dropping three from Goa Forward Party and an Independent.
BJP MLAs Chandrakant Kavlekar, Jeniffer Monserratte, Philip Neri Rodrigues and Michael Lobo have been inducted in the cabinet by Sawant after dropping Vijai Sardesai, Vinod Palyekar and Jayesh Salgaonkar (from Goa Forward Party) and Rohan Khaunte (Independent) in a swearing-in ceremony held on Saturday.
Speaker of legislative assembly Rajesh Patnekar said that the session will also hold election for the post of deputy speaker, which has fallen vacant after the resignation of Lobo from the post, hours before getting inducted in the state cabinet.
Patnekar said that the House has received total 2328 questions that include 725 starred and 1603 unstarred.
Interestingly, many of the questions are asked by the MLAs from the group of ten, who were then in Congress party before merging their unit into BJP.
Patnekar said that the questions tabled by the MLAs who have been now sworn in as ministers would be withdrawn from the proceeding. He said that the MLAs have time till July 17 to submit their questions.
With the latest political development, the strength of BJP on the floor of the House has been increased to 27 from 17, while they still enjoy support of two Independents --- Govind Gawade, Prasad Gaonkar and one each from MGP and NCP.
Goa Forward Party and Independent MLA Khaunte have withdrawn their support on Saturday.
Congress which was 15 on the floor of the House has been reduced to five after the group of ten merged themselves into the rival party. With the addition of Goa Forward party and one independent, the opposition benches will have nine MLAs.