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Saturday, Jul 10, 2004

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Congress walkout in Goa Assembly

By Anil Sastry

PANAJI, JULY 9. The Opposition Congress members in the Goa Assembly stalled question hour today protesting against the presence of two Ministers who were arrested for alleged vandalism in a hotel on Thursday and released later. The members walked out after the Speaker asked two of their colleagues to withdraw from the House.

The House continued its business in the absence of the Opposition members except Wilfred D' Souza, belonging to the Nationalist Congress Party.

As soon as the Speaker, Vishwas Satarkar, took up question hour, Ravi Naik, MLA for Ponda, objected to retaining the name of Vinay Tendulkar, whose resignation from the Cabinet has been accepted, in the question-answer list circulated to the members.

Mr. Naik, who was to table the first question, said he did not want to table it and the Speaker moved on to the next questions which were to be answered by the Minister for Law, IT and Craftsmen Training, Francisco D' Souza, and the Minister for Agriculture and Animal Husbandry, Dayanand Mandrekar.

However, the Congress MLA, Luizinho Faleiro, and his colleagues objected to the Ministers providing answers stating that they did not want answers from "criminal Ministers."

The two Ministers and a BJP MLA, Sadanand Tanvade, were arrested on Thursday evening on a charge of rioting and causing destruction to a hotel belonging to Mathew Braganza, a Congress leader.

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