Panaji, Oct 15 (IANS): A day after the Supreme Court on Friday issued notices to Speaker of the Goa Legislative Assembly Ramesh Tawadkar and eight MLAs in defection case, Congress said that a contempt petition will be filed against the Speaker for allegedly delaying a decision.

Former Chief Minister Digambar Kamat, (then) Leader of Opposition Michael Lobo, Delilah Lobo, Kedar Naik, Sankalp Amonkar, Rajesh Faldesai, Aleixo Sequeira and Rudolf Fernandes, are the eight legislators who switched parties by joining BJP on September 14, 2022. This political development had reduced Congress party to mere three MLAs in the 40-member Goa Legislative Assembly.

Former Congress Chief Girish Chodankar had pleaded before the Apex Court to direct the Speaker of the Goa Legislative Assembly to dispose of the disqualification petition filed before him 11 months back. Hearing the matter on Friday, the Apex Court served notices to defectors and the Speaker.

“In fact we are in the process of filing contempt petition before theSupreme Court against the Speaker,sincehe despite being repeatedly informed about the mandate laid down by Supreme Court in Keisham Meghachandra Singh judgment that disqualification petitions have to be decided within three months’ time, has deliberately not complied with the same and willfully disrespected the mandate of law as laid down by the Supreme Court,” Chodankar told IANS.

“BJP is trying to usurp power and remain in power by cheating democratic process. It steals MLAs from other parties. Now the Supreme Court has given hope to Save Democracy by serving notices to eight defectors and Goa Speaker Ramesh Tawadkar, who delayed hearings,” Chodankar said.

He said that despite the high court in its judgment ( dated May 2), having said that the Speaker will decide the disqualification petition expeditiously and follow the Keisam Meghachandra Singh judgment, which lays down the law that disqualification petitions have to be decided within three months. The Goa speaker failed to serve notices to defectors.

“Hence, I knocked on the doors of the apex court to give justice to the people of Goa, who elected these defectors on Congress seats to get freedom from BJP’s dirty politics,” he said.

“Now at least the Speaker should respect the Supreme Court order and serve notices. It seems Tawadkar and BJP are under the impression that they are above law," Chodankar said.

He said that the BJP has such arrogance of power that it defied the order of the high court saying it can’t direct the speaker.

"No speaker can say like that, but Tawadkar who is a BJP and RSS leader said it while neglecting the high court. This is very bad that Tawadkar, who is also a teacher, is setting bad precedents," Chodankar said.

"As per my appeal these defectors should be disqualified, but if BJP government takes time to dispose of the case, then I am sure the people of Goa will teach them a lesson by showing doors in the next Assembly election, how we saw defeat of defectors during the last Assembly election" Chodankar said.

The BJP government in Goa has been chanting the mantra of 'ease of doing business', but it is 'ease of defection' that it has been able to promote better, with eight MLAs from the Congress joining the saffron party to keep up the state's long political tradition of slippery loyalties.

Former Chief Minister Digambar Kamat, one of the defectors from the group of eight, justifying his deed said that 'God has told him to join the BJP'. This has largely caught the attention of many people across the country.

Since 1963, Goa has witnessed 30 Chief Ministers of various parties and imposition of President's rule five times due to political crises.

Since 2017, two major rounds of defections have taken place in Goa, wherein Congress MLAs have switched sides by joining the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). This had helped the BJP to retain power between 2017-22, and now, to become stronger.

Despite the Congress being the largest party in the 2017 Goa Assembly election with 17 MLAs, the BJP having just 13 seats outplayed the former to form the government and completed the term with full strength by welcoming Congress defectors in its party fold.

In the last term of the BJP government, in March 2017, the then Congress MLA Vishwajit Rane resigned from the party as well as an MLA and joined the BJP. He won the byelection then and became a minister in the BJP government.

Then, Congress MLA Ravi Naik's son Roy Naik contested against Rane on a Congress ticket. Before the Assembly election in February 2022, Ravi Naik joined the BJP and got elected from Ponda. Now Ravi Naik is a minister in the cabinet of Chief Minister Pramod Sawant.

In October 2018, another two Congress legislators, Subhash Shirodkar and Dayanand Sopte, also resigned and joined the BJP, subsequently winning the bypoll.

Switching sides didn't stop here. On July 10, 2019, the Congress faced a third setback after 10 more MLAs along with Leader of Opposition Chandrakant Kavalekar switched over to BJP. Kavalekar, along with six other defectors, however, lost the Assembly elections in February 2022.