Day 1 of Goa Assembly starts with milk ‘abhishek’

After days of political turmoil and horse-trading in Goa which received much condemnation from the general public, the first day of the monsoon session of the state legislative Assembly started with a milk ‘abhishek’.

Farmers from the remote Bicholim sub district drove to the Assembly with hundreds of litre of milk stored in metal cans on Monday morning and poured the liquid contents on the road leading to the Assembly precincts in a symbolic protest against the rejection of the day’s produce by the Surat Milk Union Limited (SUMUL), one of the two major dairy co-operatives, operating in Goa.

“We brought this rejected milk as a gift for our MLAs, but the police refused to allow us into the Assembly premises with the milk. Therefore we dumped it on the road for them (MLAs) to see,” dairy farmers' spokesperson Meghashyam Raut told reporters at the state Assembly complex.

The dairy farmers were enraged after a quality control test conducted by procurement officers of SUMUL led to the rejection of nearly 4,000 litre of milk on Monday morning.

Chief Minister Pramod Sawant has promised to examine the issue.

Earlier on Monday, Sawant allotted portfolios to four new ministers in his Cabinet, three of whom are Congress defectors.

All four ministers were inducted into the Sawant ministry on Saturday.

Ten Congress leaders split the party last week and joined the BJP.

Deputy Chief Minister Chandrakant Kavlekar was made the town and country planning minister and also allotted the ministries of agriculture, archives, archaeology and factories and boilers.

Filipe Neri Rodrigues, another defector, was awarded with water resources, fisheries and legal metrology.

Jennifer Monserrate, also a defector, was made minister for revenue, information technology, labour and employment.

Former Deputy Speaker Michael Lobo, a lone non-defector MLA to be included into the Cabinet on Saturday, was made minister for rural development agency, waste management, ports and science and technology.