Congress stages walkout from Goa Assembly (Lead)

Panaji, Jan 29 (IANS) The main Opposition party, the Congress, on Tuesday staged a walkout even as Goa Governor Mridula Sinha was addressing the Assembly on the opening day of the three-day Budget session.Leader of Opposition Chandrakant Kavlekar said his party MLAs were staging the walkout in protest against Sinha's lack of initiative to act on a host of petitions sent to her by the Opposition.The petitions demanded the sacking of the Manohar Parrikar-led Bharatiya Janata Party coalition government in view of the Chief Minister's ill-health."We are walking out in protest," Kavlekar said, even as Sinha started delivering her formal address.Later addressing a press conference, the Leader of Opposition also said that Sinha had been partisan in her role as Governor."At the outset, as the single largest party, we should have been given an opportunity to form the government and prove majority. After that, when the administration had come to a standstill, we met her on six occasions and sought dismissal of the government because it was good for nothing (in view of Parrikar's prolonged illness)," Kavlekar said."But she did not respond to our demands even once... The Governor should have taken action using her powers to ensure smooth functioning of the administration," the Congress leader added.
--IANS maya/oeb/bg