Thaindian News

Panaji, April 8 (IANS) The Goa assembly was adjourned for the fourth day Friday over the detention of state Education Minister Atanasio alias Babush Monserrate last week by Mumbai airport customs for allegedly carrying foreign exchange worth crores of rupees.

Opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) legislators, with black kerchiefs tied across their mouths, continued with their insistance on a discussion on Monserrate’s conduct and forced Speaker Pratapsingh Rane to adjourn the house for the fourth day.

“We have come wearing black kerchiefs across our mouths because we are not being allowed to discuss important issues in this assembly. This minister’s behaviour has to be discussed in the house. What is the point in continuing with the session if such issues are not taken up,” Leader of Opposition Manohar Parrikar said.

The budget session of the assembly ended Friday with the opposition members boycotting the final hour of the business for the day.

Parrikar later told reporters that Chief Minister Digambar Kamat was protecting the minister accused of smuggling foreign exchange.

“The chief minister is shielding him. That makes him equally complicit,” Parrikar said, adding that Kamat had also appointed a senior bureaucrat who had been accused of a multi-crore excise scam in his personal secretariat.

“How do these kind of people accused of crimes end up being close to the chief minister,” Parrikar said.

The BJP dubbed Monserrate a “mini Hasan Ali” after the Pune-based alleged money launderer, and said that he could be laundering money for several ministers and politicians.

“He could be a conduit for parking money from ministers and politicians abroad. He is a mini Hasan Ali…a Babush Ali,” Parrikar said Tuesday, after staging a walkout from the assembly.

The BJP claimed that the minister was intimidating witnesses in a criminal case against him, which was being probed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

Quoting media reports from Mumbai, Parrikar said that the CBI had filed an application with the Bombay High Court seeking transfer of an arson and assault case against Monserrate, because “witnesses were being threatened”.