Goa LoP writes to Assembly Speaker, demands urgent meeting of Business Advisory Committee

This comes after the Goa Assembly session which was scheduled from Monday, January 16 to Thursday, January 19, 2023, was curtailed. The LoP wrote a letter to Speaker of the Goa Assembly Ramesh Tawadkar.

"I request you to convene an urgent meeting of the Business Advisory Committee to discuss on the duration of the Third Session of the Eighth Legislative Assembly to be further extended to Two to Three Weeks and the schedule for tabling the Legislative Assembly Questions which is now scheduled between 26th December 2022 to 28th December 2022 (the days are part of the annual Christmas & New Year Festivities) to be further extended," he wrote.

He further urged the Speaker to ensure that the Opposition MLAs are given equal opportunity and enough time to raise, participate and discuss on various issues of public importance.

Yuri Alemao also pointed in his letter that the four Days session will allow the Members of the Legislative Assembly to raise issues by way of Legislative Assembly Questions, Zero Hour Mentions and calling attention effectively only for three days with the first day of the session being allotted to the address of the Governor of Goa.

"I want to place on record that the Government had curtailed the Second Session of the Eighth Legislative Assembly from five weeks to two weeks, depriving the Members of the Legislative Assembly to raise issues concerning the People of Goa. The Opposition MLAs were expecting a minimum Session of two to three weeks duration," he wrote.

"It appears that as experienced in the past, there will be restrictions on moving of Zero Hour Mentions and Calling Attentions. It also appears that as done in the past, the Rules may be suspended to further curtail the functioning of the House," he wrote. (ANI)