The more things change, the more they remain the same. Speaker Nadendla Manohar might have brought in a new look to the interiors of the state Assembly but the political parties have already given enough indications that the budget session scheduled from Monday will be no different to the previous sessions that ended up without any constructive debates.
Earlier, a major part of the House sessions had been lost in quarrels among different parties and demonstrations by the Opposition parties on the Floor itself and this 45-day long Budget session is expected to witness the similar scenes from day one. The Telangana Rashtra Samiti members, who had turned aggressive during the last joint address of Governor E.S.L. Narasimhan, made their intentions clear on Sunday, saying that they would repeat the protest against the speech if it failed to reflect the aspirations of the people of Telangana for a separate state. “We will use the House as a platform for our agitation for Telan-gana,” party Floor leader E. Rajender announced.
The ruling party enters the House with a great humiliation as they would be facing the Jagan group MLAs, despite their open defiance. The blessing in disguise, however, will be TD supremo N. Chandrababu Naidu’s Floor strategy that gives more importance to the stalling of the House rather than cornering the treasury benches with effective debate.
The political atmosphere will heat up during the session in view of the biennial polls to Rajya Sabha scheduled in March. Chief Minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy will face a litmus test in the precarious numbers game he would be forced to play.
The rebel Congress MLAs, along with TRS and BJP, are likely to cause nightmares to the Chief Minister with a combined strength of 32, which is just 10 short of the magic figure. For the first time, some concrete measures might be taken up on the demand for installing the statue of Dr B R Ambedkar in the Assembly premises. The Opposition parties might insist for passing a resolution to this effect.
The constitution of the House had also remained the same from the previous session and the only change could be the Congress MLAs belonging to Jagan group being more open in exhibiting their loyalty to the YSR Congress. This will start with the MLAs wearing the party “khandvas” and taking on the ruling benches like any other Opposition party.
Despite the Praja Rajyam merger into the Congress, all the party MLAs will retain their identity in the House as the merger of legislature party is yet to take place. Perhaps, this will provide some comfort to Mr K.Chiranjeevi who can continue to sit in the first row as the leader of PRLP. The Telugu Desam is gearing up to launch an effective offensive against the ruling party over what it described as the “all round failure of the government.” The involvement of politicians and officials in the liquor syndicates scam that is rocking the state will dominate the proceedings followed by issues of drought, CBI probe into Emaar and Jagan’s assets case and the sensational remarks by health minister D.L. Ravindra Reddy that his party colleagues bribed the high command for posts.
–courtesy:DC