JAMMU: The Legislative Assembly has received around 1300 questions from 81 MLAs which showed enthusiasm among the legislators as the budget session is being held for the first time after seven years but, as per the experts, only 200 to 250 of them will be debated in the House as there will be 22 sittings and hardly 7-8 questions (maximum of 10 or 12 on rare occasions) are taken up in a day.
As the MLAs can’t raise queries on terrorism, law and order, All India Services and related issues which are in the domain of Central Government, the focus of the legislators has shifted to Tourism, Works, Finance, Industry & Commerce, Power, Health, Rural and Urban Development Departments among others.
The Question Hour will start from March 4 as only obituary references will be taken up on March 3 when the House will assemble after Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha’s Address to the Legislature.
“A number of queries pertained to powers of the Lieutenant Governor, Chief Minister, Cabinet, Ministers and Administrative Secretaries,” the sources said, but added that the powers excepting that of LG haven’t been defined as the Business Rules are yet to be issued.
On March 4, 26 starred and 15 un-starred questions will be listed in the House. While starred questions are taken up for discussion, the members get only written replies for un-starred questions.
Legislative Assembly Speaker Abdul Rahim Rather is expected to constitute different House Committees during the budget session. The Assembly has a number of Committees to monitor working of different departments, maintaining discipline and ethics within the House and submit their reports to the Speaker which are subsequently laid down on table of the House.
“Some of the Committees will be headed by the ruling party MLAs and their allies while chairmanship of few Panels is expected to go to the Opposition,” the sources said.
In the House of 90, there are 88 MLAs with two vacancies. While Chief Minister Omar Abdullah quit Budgam seat while retaining Ganderbal, BJP stalwart and MLA Nagrota Devender Singh Rana passed away after his elections. By-polls to these two seats haven’t been held as yet.
Among 88 MLAs, there are five Ministers besides the Chief Minister and the Speaker leaving 81 MLAs who can submit questions, private member’s resolutions and private member’s bills. Since each MLA was entitled to ask 20 questions-10 each in starred and un-starred categories, number of the questions could have gone up to1620.
Still, as per the officials, 1300 questions asked by the legislators are “good numbers” going by the history of the Legislative Assembly. Moreover, earlier, a number of questions pertained to the Home Department and All India Services which the MLAs can’t ask now as the Home Department is directly handled by the Union Home Ministry through the Lieutenant Governor.
While the BJP with 28 MLAs has finalized its budget session strategy in two days `Prashikshan Shivir’ held at Katra, the Legislature Parties of National Conference and Congress are meeting separately at 2 PM tomorrow here to discuss agenda of their respective parties. However, the BJP is also expected to hold its Legislature Party meeting ahead of the session.
People’s Democratic Party (PDP) has only three MLAs. People’s Conference, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), Awami Ittehad Party (AIP) and CPM have one MLA each. There are six Independent MLAs. (Excelsior)
