New Delhi, February 3
A day after the Manohar Parrikar Government was dismissed, a BJP delegation led by former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and including 17 MLAs from Goa today met President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam and demanded the immediate reinstatement of the party’s government in Goa and recall of Governor S C Jamir for his “unconstitutional and partisan” action.
The 28-member delegation, which included party president L.K. Advani and ousted Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar, submitted a memorandum to Kalam, accusing state Governor of “mounting an unprecedented assault on Indian democracy.”
“The entire sequence of events, since the appointment of Mr Jamir as the Governor of Goa till the events night, proves beyond any doubt that the Congress-led UPA Government at the Centre had hatched a plot to destabilise the BJP government in Goa and use the high office of the Governor to bring it to fruition,” it said.
Narrating the events leading to the BJP government’s ouster, they alleged that the Governor took the decision to dismiss Parrikar without even waiting
for the report.The BJP delegation impressed upon the President that under the Constitution and also as per the established norms of democracy, the Governor has no powers to
annul the ruling of the Speaker. “Judiciary is the sole forum before which an appeal can be made against the Speaker’s ruling.”
It also pointed out that while the Governor gave only one day to Mr Parrikar to prove his majority, he gave 30 days to incumbent Mr Pratapsinh Rane to do so.
Besides 16 BJP MLAs, the delegation also included Mathany Saldanha, UGDP MLA supporting Parrikar.
“It is not out of place here to mention that during its long rule at the Centre in previous decades, the Congress Party had routinely misused the office of the Governor to destabilise opposition-run state governments.
“Thus, what has happened in Goa yesterday is only a continuation of this undemocratic tradition,” a memorandum, submitted by them to the President, said.
Earlier, addressing a press conference, Mr Parrikar attributed the recent political events in the state to his “strong action” against a “corrupt” minister who later switched sides to the Congress.
Parading 16 party MLAs before the national media at the BJP headquarters here, he said the “blatantly illegal and conspiratorial” dismissal of his government after it won the vote of confidence on the floor of the Assembly “can damage the country’s federal structure.”
He claimed that the recent political events were triggered off after he stripped Mr Antanasio ‘Babush’ Monserrate off the Town and Country Planning portfolio in the wake of numerous complaints that “he had started indulging in massive corruption by converting land into commercial zone and bypassing the established development plan”.
“The people were naturally concerned that Goa would be ruined and turned into a concrete jungle if the minister’s corrupt practices remained unchecked. Therefore, even at the risk of reducing my government’s majority in the House, on January 27, I stripped him off this important portfolio,” Mr Parrikar said.
Mr Parrikar, who was flanked by party vice president Muqtar Abbas Naqvi and general secretry Sushma Swaraj, even claimed that he took the leader of Opposition and current Chief Minister Pratapsinh Rane into confidence that “action against Monserrate had become necessary to save Goa.”
Mr Parrikar claimed that Mr Rane had supported his decision and he agreed to “keep Monserrate out.”
Seeking to remove media perception that instability in Goa was caused by defection of BJP MLAs, he said, “I would like to make it clear that none of the 17 MLAs of the BJP who had won in the Assembly elections in June 2002 has defected till date. Those who defected were four MLAs who joined the party subsequently after the elections”.
Asserting that the “pleasure” enjoyed by the Governor on ministers holding office, a provision in the Constitution he used to sack his government yesterday, was “not absolute”, he recollected that in 1994, the then state Governor Bhanuprakash Singh had dismissed the D’Souza government under similar provisions and later the Governor was recalled and the Chief Minister reinstated.
