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Eleven Opposition members were suspended from the assembly for three days on the first day of the Budget session in Goa on Monday, after they paralysed business of the House over the tehelka.com tapes.
After passing a resolution of suspension moved by Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar amid chaos and slogan-shouting, Speaker Pratapsing Rane suspended the members, including nine belonging to the Congress and two of the Goa People's Congress.
Dayanand Narvekar, the third GPC member and Dr Wilfred de Souza, the sole Nationalist Congress Party member, did not participate in the pandemonium raised by the Opposition.
While refusing to admit the adjournment motion moved by Opposition leader Luizinho Faleiro to discuss the impact of the tehelka revelations on Goa as well as the law and order situation in the state, Rane adjourned the House four times.
As the Speaker insisted on going ahead with official business, the Opposition members entered the well and staged a protest, shouting slogans against the Bharatiya Janata Party and its former president Bangaru Laxman.
As the members refused to leave the House even after they were suspended, Rane adjourned the session for the day, after getting the motion of thanks to the governor's address passed amid chaos.
While Congress and GPC members shouted slogans against the BJP, they were also seen joking with the ruling benches throughout the protest, especially when the House was adjourned.
In fact, Churchill Alemao of the Congress once refused to join the protest in the well for the third time and had to be compelled to join his party members. He later said the BJP was also doing good work, which he did not want to oppose.
There are rumours that the remaining three GPC members, who had split from the Congress in November 1999 to form a short-lived coalition government with the BJP till October last, will join the original party any moment. However, Narvekar did not join his two colleagues to support the protest.
Faleiro later demanded that the BJP governments at the Centre and in Goa should resign as bribes taken by its party leaders must have been used to form a government in the tourist state.
Countering the allegation that the BJP has sold the nation by getting involved in shady defence deals, Parrikar commented that the Congress had not left anything to sell.
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