BJP MLA Ramesh Tawadkar was elected on Tuesday morning as the Speaker of the Goa Legislative Assembly after defeating Nuvem MLA and opposition candidate Aleixo Sequeira by 9 votes.
Tawadkar was elected with absolute majority by winning 24 votes while Aleixo Sequeira secured 16 votes.
Tawadkar, a school teacher who belongs from the ST community, was the sports minister in former Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar's government in 2012. Tawadkar was first elected in the 2005 byelection from Poinguinim. He was re-elected in 2007.
Tawadkar contested as an independent in 2017 after he was denied the BJP ticket. In 2019, he rejoined BJP and defeated sitting MLA Isidore Fernandes in the recently concluded election.
The two-day budget session of the Goa legislative assembly began on Tuesday. Chief Minister Pramod Sawant will present the first full-fledged budget of his second tenure on Wednesday.