Opposition MLAs strategise for battles in House

Panaji: Ahead of the monsoon session of the assembly, which begins on July 15, the opposition MLAs met on Tuesday to devise the strategy to corner govt.

Leader of the opposition Yuri Alemao convened the meeting at Fatorda. It was attended by Congress MLAs Altone D’Costa and Carlos Alvares Ferreira, GFP president and Fatorda MLA Vijai Sardesai, and AAP MLAs Venzy Viegas and Cruz Silva. RG party MLA Viresh Borkar was not seen in the meeting and it is not clear if he had an invitation from Alemao.

Sardesai said that the meeting was meant to discuss a collaborative approach.

“During the meeting, we agreed to speak and act as one, on behalf of all Goans and hold this unprecedentedly corrupt, incompetent, and anti-Goemkar BJP govt responsible and accountable for its crimes,” Sardesai said.

He said that the BJP-led govt, with its brute majority, has changed the system of drawing lots for the assembly questions to prevent the opposition from speaking up. “We don’t agree with the system of one question for the opposition and one question for the ruling party,” he said.

“The question hour ought to be for the opposition and not for the ruling party’s MLAs,” Sardesai said. “Burning issues need to be raised.”