E-Paper
‘Congress’ Lourenço emerges as top-performing Goa MLA’: ADR report
Three-time Congress legislator Aleixo Reginaldo Lourenço emerged as the top-performing legislator in the Goa Legislative Assembly since the beginning of the current term of the assembly until March this year with a 100% attendance record besides also having asked the most questions, an analysis of the performance of Goa’s 40 legislators across the last four and a half years has revealed
Three-time Congress legislator Aleixo Reginaldo Lourenço emerged as the top-performing legislator in the Goa Legislative Assembly since the beginning of the current term of the assembly until March this year with a 100% attendance record besides also having asked the most questions, an analysis of the performance of Goa’s 40 legislators across the last four and a half years has revealed.
According to the data, Lourenço attended all 80 sittings of the legislative assembly held over the past five years and tabled a total of 1202 questions making him the top ‘performer’ among the MLAs. He is among 11 MLAs spread across political parties with a 100% attendance record.
Leader of Opposition Digambar Kamat was in the second spot in terms of questions asked with 1137 starred and unstarred questions tabled. He, however, attended only 45 of the 80 sittings that the house held over the last four and a half years.
According to the ADR report, the Goa Legislative Assembly sat for an average of 16 days per year during which 93 bills were passed, of which roughly half (44) were passed on the same day they were introduced while 19 others were passed within a day of their introduction.
“On average, an MLA (including MLAs elected through by-elections) from Goa Assembly has asked 205 questions, including starred questions and unstarred questions and has attended 43 out of 80 sittings held in the assembly,” the report stated.
Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), a non-profit public policy advocacy group and Goa Election Watch (GEW) had filed RTIs to the Goa Assembly Secretariat asking for the information pertaining to the performance of the MLAs and the Legislative Assembly to draw up their report.
Goa has seen a tumultuous four and a half years with the capital city Panaji witnessing two by-elections after the initial 2017 election. First was when chief minister Manohar Parrikar, who was the defence minister at the time of the 2017 elections, made elected BJP MLA Siddharth Kuncalienkar resign so that he could continue as the chief minister. After Parrikar’s passing away in 2019, a by-election was held to fill the vacancy in which Congress candidate Atanasio Monserrate won. He later moved to the BJP along with nine others a few months after his election.
Besides Parrikar, BJP MLA Francis D’Souza also passed away while in office and his seat was offered to his son Joshua D’Souza. The state also saw three Congress legislators resign and get reelected on BJP tickets while ten Congress MLAs switched sides claiming a 2/3rd majority and hence did not incur disqualification under the 10th schedule of the constitution.
The session which began with 17 MLAs of the Congress, 13 of the BJP, three of the Goa Forward and the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party, three independents and one NCP MLA ended with 27 MLA of the BJP, five of the Congress (one has resigned and joined the TMC), three of the Goa Forward, one each of the NCP and the MGP and three independents.
