Goa: Shiv Sena asks Guv to dissolve state Assembly

The Goa unit of the Shiv Sena Friday submitted a memorandum to Governor Mridula Sinha demanding that the state Assembly be dissolved due to "non-functioning" of the government and inability of any party to form an alternate government.

The Shiv Sena, incidentally, does not have any MLA in the 40-member Goa Assembly.

Shiv Sena leader Jitesh Kamat said that the state administration had come to a standstill in the absence of Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar who is admitted in the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi for a pancreatic ailment.

Kamat claimed the memorandum had signatures of "thousands of people" of Goa.

"We met the Governor and demanded that the assembly be dissolved as there is no governance and no one is in a position to form a stable government," Kamat told reporters here Friday.

Speaking about Parrikar meeting BJP leaders and allies in his government at AIIMS earlier in the day, Kamat said it was a matter of shame that cabinet meetings were being held in hospitals now.

In the 40-member state assembly, the Parrikar-led government has the support of 23 MLAs.

These comprise 14 BJP MLAs, three each from the Goa Foward Party and MGP as well as three Independents.

The opposition Congress is the single largest party in the Goa assembly with 16 MLAs while the Nationalist Congress Party has one MLA.