PWD Minister Churchill Alemao came face-to-face with his bete noire Mickky Pacheco, the Tourism Minister when the disqualification petition filed by the latter came up for hearing before the Speaker Pratapsing Rane in his chamber in Porvorim on Monday.
All the parties were present including second respondent Reginaldo Lourenco, the Curtorim MLA, president of Save Goa Front (SGF) Anton Gauncar and Raul Pereira from Quepem who claims to head a faction of the regional party and Suresh Pilarnkar, general secretary of the party. Alemao was accompanied by his lawyer daughter Valanka and Adv Mike Mehta. Anton Gauncar was all smiles apparently as Raul Pereira had not been issued a notice for today’s hearing. Only Gauncar had been served the notice.
Pereira confirmed that he had not received the notice. For this, he said, he made an application before the Speaker today seeking to make him a party in the matter. “Anton Gauncar is nobody of the party”, he charged. To this, Gauncar said “the notice has not been served on Pereira, so what does it mean?…. Our stand is vindicated”. He told Herald that he has submitted documents that SGF was never merged into the Congress when Churchill and Reginaldo left the party. “We have enough evidence to prove the point”. SGF has sought a copy of the petition and made an application seeking to make averment in the matter, sources said.
The sources further said the Speaker took on record the replies filed by the respondents – Alemao and Reginaldo. Their lawyers told the Speaker that they would like to submit additional documents to prove their contention that the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution doesn’t apply to them. It is the claim of the respondents that they had merged SGF into the Congress “lock, stock and barrel” in August 2007. The petitioner – Pacheco - however, scored some brownie points over Alemao when the Election of India recognized the existence of SGF to contest the Pale by-poll in November 2008.
Valanka, nonetheless, disagrees that her father has a weak case. “Instead, we have a strong case as we have the evidence to show that 2/3rd of the SGF merged into the Congress as per the law”, she told media persons in the assembly complex while leaving the speaker’s chamber. Adv Mike Mehta told media persons that they would submit additional documents to the Speaker later on to substantiate their case. Sources said the next hearing will be fixed soon.
-Herald, Goa Daily
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