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Goa issue rocks Parliament, RS, LS
adjourned
BJP may cold shoulder Vajpayee on House
disruption
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Explanation sought from Jagmeet Brar
Maoists kill 8
villagers
Left lashes out at Chidambaram
Cop shoots three colleagues, 1 other
SC notice to Centre, EC on two-child norm
Shift house in 15 days, HC tells Vinod Khanna
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Goa issue rocks Parliament, RS, LS
adjourned
New Delhi, March 1 Both Houses plunged into turmoil as soon as they assembled with the BJP-led NDA members charging Goa Governor S.C. Jamir with murdering democracy in the state by dismissing a democratically elected government. Giving a ruling over the admissibility of the Goa issue, Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee declined to accept the adjournment motion moved by Leader of the Opposition L.K. Advani. He said,” Since the matter is pending in the Supreme Court, I cannot allow a discussion on it. The conduct of a Governor also cannot be debated by the House by way of an adjournment motion.” He said he was ready to allow discussion in any other form, and recalled that on November 27, 1996, the then Leader of the Opposition Atal Bihari Vajpayee had given a notice for an adjournment motion on the alleged “unconstitutional” action of the Uttar Pradesh Governor and continuation of the President’s rule in the state. Since the matter was sub judice, the notice is disallowed, the Speaker said. “In view of these facts,I withhold my consent to the notice of adjournment motion” on the Goa issue, the Speaker said before calling it a day. As soon as the Lok Sabha assembled, the BJP members led by the chief whip of the BJP, the Vijay Malhotra, sought to cancel question hour and demanded a debate. Initially, the Speaker asked to discuss the issue after question hour but later asked Mr Advani to speak on the “admissibility” of the issue. Mr Advani said such an action was never resorted to during the NDA rule at the Centre. “A democratically elected government was dismissed in Goa a month ago in an arbitrary manner.” “The Vajpayee government never removed any elected state government. The new device of getting some MLAs resigned to muster requisite majority in the Assembly has rendered the anti-defection law infructuous.... a matter of concern for all,” he said, seeking fresh elections in Goa. Leader of the House Pranab Mukherjee said,”Goa developments are really deplorable” and refrained to say anything as long as the admissibility of adjournment motion was yet to be decided by the Speaker. Slogan-shouting continued for about 10 minutes forcing the Speaker to adjourn the House for 15 minutes. He announced to adjourn the House for the day when the House reassembled at 11.30 am. In the Rajya Sabha, the Opposition members led by Deputy Leader of the BJP in House Sushma Swaraj not only indulged in slogan shouting but also stormed into the well of the House in the morning subsequent to which the House was adjourned for some-time. As the House reassembled, the BJP-led NDA members were again on their feet raising slogans and presiding officer tried to pacify them. He had to adjourn the House for the day. |
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Goa Speaker’s files missing
Goa, March 1 Mr Sardinha said he entered the Speaker’s office at 5.30 pm accompanied by the police and panchas to take possession of the office only to find documents pertaining to Mr Rodrigues’ disqualification missing. Congress leaders accuse Mr Sardinha’s predecessor Mr Vishwas Satarkar of removing the documents illegally from the Speaker’s chamber. However, denying the allegation, the BJP leaders instead accused Mr Sardinha, Mr Rodrigues and lawyer Mahesh Sonak of forcing their way into the Speaker’s cabin yesterday. BJP’s lawyers told journalists yesterday night that the Speaker’s cabin was allegedly broken into and all three tampered with the documents. Mr Sonak had denied the allegations that he would file a defamation case against the BJP leaders. |
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Cong to seek disqualification of
2 Oppn MLAs
ONE day after Chief Minister Pratapsingh Rane failed to get a vote of confidence on the floor of the Assembly, the Goa Congress has armed itself with legal opinion to get two MLAs from the opposition BJP-led camp disqualified.
Mr Rane will seek trust vote again though the date for it is yet to be announced. According to party spokesperson Jitendra Deshprabhu, the party has a strong case to get Matanhy Saldanha, the lone MLA from the United Goans Democratic Party disqualified for defying the party whip and voting in favour of the Manohar Parrikar government on February 2. “The erstwhile Speaker (Vishwas Satarkar who resigned on Monday) had counted Matanhy Saldanha as having voted for Parrikar during his trust vote, defying his party whip,” Deshprabhu said. With Satarkar resigning, Jamir appointed Fransisco Sardinha of the Congress as pro tem Speaker. Citing the Constitution, Sardinha says he has the powers to function as the Speaker and can disqualify a legislator, if necessary. The Congress is also confident that Governor Jamir can disqualify BJP MLA Vinay Tendulkar under Articles 191 and 192 of the Constitution for holding an office of profit. Tendulkar was appointed Parliamentary Secretary by former Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar to circumvent the limit on the size of the Cabinet. The government went on to issue an ordinance under which the post of the Parliamentary Secretary would not be considered an office of profit. The BJP went on to pass an Act in January this year ratifying the ordinance. However, Jamir is yet to give his assent to the Bill thereby providing enough ammunition to the Congress to press or Tendulkar’s disqualification. “If Tendulkar had availed of salaries and other benefits of Parliamentary Secretary, he should be disqualified by the Governor,” Deshprabhu said. |
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Explanation sought from Jagmeet Brar
New Delhi, March 1 Sources said Mr Brar had recently met Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee, in charge of Punjab, following a complaint against him by the Punjab PCC. The PCC had sent clippings of Mr Brar’s remarks in which he had criticised the Chief Minister for violence during the Ajnala byelection. |
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BJP may cold shoulder Vajpayee on House
disruption
New Delhi, March 1 The BJP members, who went ahead today with forcing adjournment of both Houses in Parliament on the issue of “murder of democracy in
Goa” despite Mr Vajpayee’s reservations, are expected to adopt the same strategy in the event of any delay in extending invitation to the NDA in Jharkhand, party sources said. “We are maintaining a close watch on the Jharkhand situation and will accordingly decide on our strategy for tomorrow in Parliament... If we do not get invitation despite providing the Governor with the list of 41 supporting MLAs today then we will be left with no option,” a top BJP leader told The Tribune. At the BJP parliamentary party meeting this morning, Mr Vajpayee is understood to have opined against disrupting question hour or any other business in Parliament on the Goa issue, fearing that it could set a “wrong precedent”. However, there were no takers in the party and some of the party MPs felt that the party should not be seen as adopting a soft stand on such issues and should aggressively raise it. “If the adjournment motion is not accepted, then furore is the only option to get it accepted”, a member reportedly said. However, the former Prime Minister clarified that he would go with the party in all its decisions but was only apprehensive that such disruptions could set a “wrong precedent” and affect the functioning of Parliament in the long run. Later, BJP parliamentary party spokesman
V.K. Malhotra denied any such differences and said Mr Vajpayee only wanted to “press for a debate”. In a related development, BJP president
L.K. Advani spoke to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, protesting against the “delaying tactics” adopted by Jharkhand Governor in inviting the
NDA. In a telephonic conversation with Dr Manmohan Singh this afternoon, Mr Advani stated that the action of the Governor should be above board and that he should not be seen to be acting in a “partisan manner”, sources said. |
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Maoists kill 8
villagers
Hyderabad, March 1 Home Minister K. Jana Reddy, who rushed to the village on hearing the news, announced Rs 5 lakh ex gratia to each of the affected families. The dead were accused in a case of burning nine Maoist sympathisers alive in the past. “We killed them because they massacred Dalits”, CPI (Maoist) district secretary Satyam said in a note left behind after the ghastly incident. The Naxals killed the sarpanch of the village in 1998, creating a divide between Dalits and other caste groups in the village. The upper caste group avenged the village head’s death by burning alive their Dalit sympathisers. The case is being tried in a local court. The villagers said it was on the pretext of discussing this case and arriving at a compromise that Maoists called them to a nearby forest. In the ruse of talking to each one individually, they were isolated and eight of them eliminated. Having sensed the trap laid for them, other villagers ran back to the village. Around 30 villagers went inside the forest, where a 16-member Naxal squad met them. “The Naxals don’t have the right to kill villagers, even if they are murder-accused,” the Home Minister said. The police was rushed to the village and anti-Naxal squads were pressed into combing operations in the area. |
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Left lashes out at Chidambaram
New Delhi, March 1 “The Finance Minister’s concern for the agricultural sector is belied both by the limited allocations for this sector, and by the inadequate tariff protection offered to it. His emphasis on crop diversification, moreover, goes against the basic national objective of ensuring self-sufficiency in foodgrains,” the CPM Politburo said. It said, “The problem in the country has not been that we produce too much foodgrains for our requirements but that there is insufficient purchasing power with the people.” On the customs duties on capital goods import, the party said it could “pose a threat to the domestic capital goods industry.” |
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Cop shoots three colleagues, 1 other
Lucknow, March 1 According to DIG Varansai range R.N. Yadav the incident occurred minutes after the PAC force posted at the outer cordon of the security ring of the Vishwanath Temple-Gyanvapi masjid changed duty after completing the 2 am to 10 am shift. As the force was getting into the PAC vehicle the culprit constable Ramdhyam Prajapati attached to the 20th Battalion at Azamgarh reacted to instructions given by the inspector to get into the vehicle. He fired aiming his 303-bore service rifle at the inspector who escaped unhurt. However, Head Constables Umashankar Rai, Premsagar Yadav and Ram Surat Prasad were not so lucky in the indiscriminate firing that ensued and they succumbed to their injuries at Benaras Hindu University Hospital. Three constables Umesh Singh, Sita Ram Yadav and Jaiprakash also suffered bullet injuries. A stray bullet hit Sunil Kumar,alias Babloo, a young flower seller who sold garlands at the temple complex killing him on the spot. Those injured are still struggling for survival. According to Home Secretary Alok Sinha, an inquiry has been ordered which DIG (PAC) C.B. Rai would conduct. Mr Sinha also said from reports emanating from Varanasi it appears that Prajapati was mentally disturbed. |
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SC notice to Centre, EC on two-child norm
New Delhi, March 1 Taking cognizance of a PIL petition, which sought to make the bar on MPs and MLAs mandatory, a Bench comprising Chief Justice R.C. Lahoti and Mr Justice D.M. Dharmadhikari yesterday sought a reply from the Union Government on the issue. |
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Shift house in 15 days, HC tells Vinod Khanna
New Delhi, March 1 Mr Justice Manmohan Sarin directed Mr Khanna to shift to a smaller bungalow, allotted to him on the Purana Quila road, within 15 days. |
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A. B. Vajpayee demands fresh
polls in Goa. (
