Panaji, Jul 7 (IANS): Goa Assembly Speaker Ramesh Tawadkar on Thursday said that the monsoon session, scheduled to begin on July 11, will be curtailed to ten days on account of Panchayat elections to be held in the second week of August.

According to Tawadkar, Chief Minister Pramod Sawant during the Business Advisory Committee meeting on Thursday expressed concern that government staff will be engaged in the Panchayat elections and hence they won't be able to manage both, along with the assembly session.

Goa Assembly session was earlier scheduled from July 11 to August 12, for five weeks, which is now curtailed to two weeks.

"I accepted the proposal of the government to curtail the assembly session for ten days as the Chief Minister raised concern that government staff will be engaged in Panchayat election. Besides that, even technical things like giving assurances (in assembly sessions) are also there," Tawadkar said.

Sawant said that the government had raised concern that as there are panchayat elections, government staff will get involved in the process. Hence it will not be possible for them to also work on panchayat elections, as well as for assembly session.

"Election will be held for 186 panchayats. Staff will not be able to manage both assembly sessions and panchayat elections at the same time. So we had requested the Speaker to take a session of two weeks and pass a budget," he said.

"You compare with other states, even for you (Media) what has happened is that as Goa is a small state, CM is accessible for all your questions and hence you ask me all questions. One need to check how many days an assembly session takes place in big states like Uttar Paradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and others," Sawant said.

"Our intention was clear. We had decided to hold an assembly session for 23 days. When I became Chief Minister in 2019, that time also the assembly session was of 21 days. But now due to the panchayat election we need to curtail the assembly session," Sawant said.