LUCKNOW The Uttar Pradesh assembly was on Friday adjourned sine die after taking up, within minutes, not only the day’s agenda but also the business listed for the entire budget session scheduled till March 7, 2020.
Besides the Appropriation Bill for 2020-2021, along with department-wise grants under separate 1 to 95 heads for about Rs 5.45 lakh crore, the house also passed six other bills in one go, without any debate, amid strong protests from the opposition members. Grants for four departments were taken up on Thursday.
BSP leader Lalji Verma and Congress Legislature Party leader Aradhna Mishra staged a walk out along with their respective party members, while the Samajwadi Party members used masks to keep their mouth shut and lodge their unique protest against cutting short of the budget session to just 10 sittings.
A scrutiny of duration of budget session indicates that the house had only nine sittings during the budget session in 2009 and eight in 2011.
Chief minister Yogi Adityanath, who used the occasion to announce an increase in the Vidhayak Nidhi (fund) from Rs 2 crore to Rs 3 crore per annum and setting up of an all-party committee to make recommendations on hike in members’ salaries and allowances, probably had these statistics in mind when he targeted the opposition, saying his government has ensured more sittings of the house in one budget session than those held in the past 15 years.
{{/usCountry}}Chief minister Yogi Adityanath, who used the occasion to announce an increase in the Vidhayak Nidhi (fund) from Rs 2 crore to Rs 3 crore per annum and setting up of an all-party committee to make recommendations on hike in members’ salaries and allowances, probably had these statistics in mind when he targeted the opposition, saying his government has ensured more sittings of the house in one budget session than those held in the past 15 years.
{{/usCountry}}“We want the house to work as a forum for a dialogue. The people now know who is causing obstructions in the way of this dialogue. When this house debated Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the special session of state legislature convened, on the occasion of 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, the opposition boycotted it,” said Yogi.
“Those who have shut their mouths using face masks will have to repent as many leaders repented when they decided to walk out of the special session,” he said.
He suggested that political leaders should discuss measures to ensure smooth business in the house and an-all party committee be constituted to follow the committee system being followed in parliament. As of now, leaders of political parties get a major chunk of time while the new comers were left out and he would like all members get opportunity to speak in the house, he said.
Earlier as minister for parliamentary affairs Suresh Khanna moved a resolution to relax rules, about an hour before the adjournment, to take up all business for consideration of the house in one go, leader of Opposition Ram Govind Chaudhary said the government did not disclose its plans even at the business advisory committee meeting on Thursday.
However, Khanna said he had taken the leaders of opposition parties into confidence on the issue.
He urged Speaker Hridaya Narain Dikshit to put his motion to vote. After the house adopted the motion to take up all the business in one go, Dikshit took up the agenda one after the other.