This story is from July 27, 2019

Chief minister Pramod Sawant

PORVORIM: A bit of language drama erupted in the House during question hour on Friday.In the House of 40, members mostly converse in either Konkani or English. But on Friday, MGP MLA Ramkrishna Dhavalikar suddenly raised some questions in Marathi to which health minister Vishwajit Rane replied in the same language. Benaulim NCP legislator Churchill Alemao complained that he could not follow the conversation between the two MLAs. “Speaker sir, I can’t understand what they are talking about. Please provide a translator,” Alemao said.Alemao, one of the few MLAs who religiously speaks in Konkani in the House, raised his objection, even referring to Marathi as ‘mauxi’ (aunt).After Alemao objected twice to the conversation in Marathi, chief minister Pramod Sawant intervened and requested speaker Rajesh Patnekar to appoint a translator before the next session of the assembly . “We speak in Hindi, Marathi, English and shortly, the day will come when we will have someone speaking Kannada here,” Sawant said.In the highly contentious Konkani versus Marathi language issue, MGP has always supported the latter. In fact, at one point, MGP staunchly supported Marathi to be made the state’s official language. Even after Konkani was declared as the official language, MGP did not give up its stand completely. Later, in the late 80s, when the language agitation was at its height, the party sided with supporters of the Marathi language.In the House, too, in the 90s, MGP MLAs would speak in Marathi.It is only in recent years that the party has not vociferously raked up the language issue.