Goa speaker dismisses disqualification plea against 8 Cong MLAs who joined BJP

Lawyer Abhijit Gosavi, who appeared for the former Congress chief in proceedings before the speaker, said the decision was “on expected lines.”

PANAJI: Goa assembly speaker Ramesh Tawadkar on Friday dismissed a petition seeking disqualification of eight Congress MLAs in 2022 who switched over to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), reasoning that a lawmaker shall not be disqualified where his original political party merges with another political party

Goa speaker Ramesh Tawadkar said a legislator did not incur disqualification when the original political party merges with another political party (Facebook/RameshTawadkarOfficial)

“In simple words, upon the merger of the original political party of the elected member with another political party, the elected member will not face disqualification in either contingency i.e whether he chooses to go with the merger or disagrees with the same,” the speaker said in his ruling, according to news agency PTI.

The disqualification petition was filed by former Goa Congress chief Girish Chodankar against 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 party’s strength in the 40-member assembly to 28.

The speaker noted that the eight legislators had passed a resolution to merge the Congress legislature party with the BJP, and that disqualification on ground of defection does not apply in case of merger.

Lawyer Abhijit Gosavi, who appeared for the former Congress chief in proceedings before the speaker, said the decision was “on expected lines.”

“The speaker has dismissed the petition. We expected nothing more. The only silver lining is that after a lot of efforts over the last two years, finally a decision has come. Since the decision is there, now we will take steps to ensure that the correct law in regard to disqualification of defectors is laid down in the SC,” Gosavi said

Petitioner Girish Chodankar said that he would seek legal guidance before deciding the next course of action.

“The speaker who himself welcomed the Congress MLAs into the BJP is now the judge to decide what he had done back then is correct or not. This is not in tune with the anti-defection law, which has now been reduced to a law for defections,” Chodankar said.

Aleixo Sequeira, who switched from the Congress to the BJP, welcomed the speaker’s decision saying he was confident that the speaker wouldn’t fault their move. “We had studied the law, we didn’t just jump into the fire,” Sequeira said.