Taking out the wind from the opposition BJP's sails, a day prior to the Goa legislative assembly session, four members of Public Accounts Committee (PAC), all members of the ruling Congress alliance, refused to sign the PAC report which reportedly indicts senior Congress ministers in illegal mining.
The PAC is chaired by opposition leader Manohar Parrikar. Not only did the three Congress MLAs - Agnelo Fernandes, Victoria Fernandes, Francisco Silveira - and alliance partner MGP MLA Deepak Dhavalikar, not sign the report, Agnelo Fernandes also took away a copy of the report despite warnings from committee chairman not to do so. Parrikar said this amounted to a breach of privilege as the report has not yet been submitted to the Speaker of the Goa Legislative Assembly. The dissenting members told the media that they refused to sign as Parrikar did not allow them the two days they requested to study the report. "We cannot sign something which we have not read. It is against our conscience," Victoria Fernandes, the lone woman MLA in Goa and popularly called as 'mummy', told the media. But Parrikar said he could not release the report to be taken out of the legislative assembly complex before it was submitted to the Speaker. He said the PAC had held 28 meetings and that the Congress members of the PAC had remained absent for most of the meetings. In fact, Francis Silveira had never attended a single meeting, Agnelo Fernandes attended only about two meetings and that too briefly, Victoria Fernandes attended about eight meetings and Dhavalikar attended about eight meetings, Parrikar said, adding, "They had enough time to study the report. They refused to sign because they do not want the report." Parrikar will however submit the report to the Speaker on Wednesday when the Goa Legislative assembly convenes for a two-day session. Parrikar said he will mention in the report, the fact that Agnelo Fernandes took away a copy of the report before it was presented to the Speaker thereby committing a breach of privilege. Interestingly, Parrikar said that when the meeting started at 11.30am on Tuesday, none of the ruling alliance members had come for the meeting. He had a quorum of three members comprising the BJP MLAs Damodar Naik, Francisco D'Souza and himself and if he wanted to, he coud have adopted the report and wound up the proceedings. But he called up the Congress members and waited for them to attend the meeting, he said.
