On November 3, 2020, the Supreme Court is likely to hear a matter related to 10 Congress Members of Legislative Assembly (MLAs) from Goa who defected to the BJP in July 2019. The petitioner had sought that the court’s decision on its disqualification plea be expedited by two weeks reported The Times of India.
It is noteworthy that when state elections took place in 2017, the Congress emerged as the single largest party with 17 seats, while the BJP women 13 in the 40-member assembly. But the BJP then craftily cobbled together a coalition and formed the government with the Late Manohar Parrikar as CM. After Parrikar’s death in March 2019, Pramod Sawant succeeded him as Chief Minister.
But, in July 2019, 10 Congress MLAs led by Chandrakant Kavlekar who was then leader of the Opposition in the Goa Assembly, defected to the BJP. These were: Atanasio Monserratte, Jeniffer Monserratte, Francis Silveira, Philip Nery Rodrigues, Cleaofacio Dias, Wilfred D’Sa, Nilkant Halarnkar, Isidor Fernandes and Antonio Fernandes.
But propaganda ensured that this was not viewed as a defection, and even the Speaker gave the go-ahead for the ‘merger’ given how two-thirds of the MLAs of one party had switched to the other side. This is seen by many political watchers as a rather twisted interpretation of the anti-defection law added to the Constitution as the Tenth Schedule by the 52nd amendment in 1985 (interestingly under Rajiv Gandhi’s tenure as Prime Minister). The Congress for its part maintained that this wasn’t a ‘merger’ as there was no split in the Congress and the Congress certainly had not merged with the BJP.
In wake of acceptance of the Speaker of the ‘merger’ though, the disqualification petition remained pending from August 2019. On February 13, 2020, Goa Assembly Speaker Rajesh Patnekar heard the disqualification petition filed by the Congress and lawyers of the 10 (defected) MLAs sought time to file their replies. But this was way past the three-month deadline set for hearing disqualification petitions as set by the Supreme Court when it heard a similar matter related to defection of MLAs in Manipur.
The subject of defection and application of the anti-defection law proved to be contentious and the matter went to court. In fact, in June 2020, a Supreme Court Bench comprising Chief Justice SA Bobde, Justices AS Bopanna & MR Shah issued “early notice” returnable within three weeks, on the plea filed by Girish Chodankar, Goa Congress President that contends that the disqualification plea which is pending since August 2019 before the Speaker must be expedited. It additionally seeks restraining the 10 defected MLAs to BJP from officiating as MLAs and ministers. Moreover, the plea reiterated that the Speaker has violated the deadline of 3 months to decide disqualification which was set by the Supreme Court in its ruling pertaining to the Manipur MLA defection case.
It is also noteworthy that on July 21, the Supreme Court had issued notice to the Speaker of Goa Legislative Assembly on a plea filed by Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) Leader Sudin Dhavalikar. The plea had sought issuance of directions to the Speaker to decide disqualification petition filed against 2 defected MGP MLAs, pending since May 5, 2019 and tagged it with Chodankar’s plea.
Meanwhile, the defections in Goa and subsequent rewards to said defectors in terms of ministerial berths led to much heart-burn in the BJP itself. The BJP led coalition had anyway grown stronger with support from six MLAs from the Goa Forward party and independents and many viewed the fresh influx of Congress turncoats as unnecessary.
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