The State Legislative Assembly is all set to witness a stormy session from Monday.While the State Government is preparing to counter or dodge several issues, the divided opposition is geared up to pull up the government for its failures. All political parties gave clear indications on how they would behave during the five-day monsoon session from Monday onwards. The main opposition Telugu Desam Party boycotted the Business Advisory Committee meeting while accusing the government of not being serious on debating public issues. While the government slammed the TDP for boycott, the other political parties condemned the absence of both Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy
and Leader of the Opposition N Chandrababu Naidu from the meeting.
Meanwhile, the BAC during its meeting held in Assembly premises on Sunday, finalised the agenda for five-day session. The meeting, chaired by Speaker Nadendla Manohar, was attended by Legislative Affairs Minister D Sreedhar Babu, Government Chief Whip Gandra Venkataramana Reddy, floor leaders YS Vijayamma of YSR Congress party,
Etala Rajender of Telangana Rastra Samithi, Akbaruddin Owaisi of Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen, E Lakshminarayana of Bharatiya Janata Party, G Mallesh of CPI, J Ranga Reddy CPI (M) and Dr Jayaprakash Narayan of Lok Satta.
Later, talking to reporters, TDP Deputy Floor leader Gali Muddukrishnamma Naidu defended the TDP’s decision to boycott the BAC meeting. He alleged that the government was not serious about holding the assembly session and the Chief Minister’s absence from the BAC meeting was a proof for the same. He said the government should have held one-month long session to seriously discuss the issues concerning common man. However, only a five-day session was being conducted only to fulfill the formality,he said.
However, the Government Chief Whip denied the TDP’s allegations and said that the government was not afraid of holding discussions on public issues. He said it was on the request of opposition parties that the duration of monsoon session was increased from four to five days. Besides the issues of Fee Reimbursement, power crisis and SC/ST Sub- Plan, two bill will also be introduced during the session, he said.
YSRCP leader Vijayamma said that the session should have been held for at least 15 working days to discuss the issues concerning common man. Akbaruddin Owaisitoo expressed displeasure over the short duration of monsoon session. He said if the government was conducting the session to fulfill a formality, then it should have confined
the duration to just one-day. He appealed to the parties to participate in the discussions,instead of wasting time by creating uproar.
The TRS, BJP and CPI demanded that the assembly pass a resolution in favour of formation of Telangana State. The BJP and CPI also demanded that the assembly pass a resolution to mark the Hyderabad Liberation Day on Monday. Etala Rajender said that the government should have convened a separate three-day session to discuss the SC/
ST Sub-Plan. CPI’s Mallesh said that the government should also give a statement on the Somapeta firing incident.
Besides specific agendas, the opposition parties are seeking discussion on Fee Reimbursement, power crisis, farmers’ issues, drinking water, diesel price hike and new policy on LPG cylinders during the session.