Monday, February 28 2005 13:42 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Panaji: Ahead of the confidence vote sought by the Pratapsinh Rane Government in Goa Assembly, Speaker Vishwas Satarkar today (Feb 28, 2005) disqualified an independent MLA Filipe Neri Rodrigues thus reducing the strength of the Congress-led Rane Government to 17.

However, the action is not going to have any impact as the arithmetic still favoured the Congress, which has 17 MLAs in a house of 34 as compared to Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) 16.

The disqualification was made on the basis of a petition filed by BJP MLA Sadanand Shet stating that Rodrigues could not withdraw support to the Parrikar Government nor could qualify as an independent MLA because he had joined the BJP in 2002.

They also presented documentary evidence in support of their claim.

Rodrigue's lawyer said that they had requested for suspension of the order, which has been rejected.

Earlier the Speaker accepted the resignation of BJP MLA Digambar Kamat.