Himachal Pradesh Assembly Speaker Kuldeep Singh Pathania, in an all-party meeting on Monday, appealed to the Assembly members to run the House peacefully during the Budget Session.
This year’s Budget Session of the Himachal Pradesh Legislative Assembly will start on March 14 and will continue till April 6.
An all-party meeting was convened by Speaker Kuldeep Singh Pathania today ahead of the State Budget Session. In the all-party meeting, the ruling party and the opposition were urged to run the session smoothly, sources said.
This is the first budget session of the Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu government, but even before the session, the ruling party and opposition have already been engaged in a war of words. Moreover, the ruling party and the opposition are at loggerheads over the closure of the institutions opened by the previous government, the heat of which will be seen inside the House as well.
Speaker Pathania, on the all-party meeting in the Assembly, said that the opposition has been urged to run the house peacefully. He expressed hope that both the ruling and opposition will cooperate.
“We have called all party meetings here. I have appealed to both to run the house peacefully and smoothly. The opposition will be given full opportunity to speak in the House and whatever issues are related to the public interest will be discussed. Now let us see what the attitude of the opposition inside the house is. Till now the Assembly has received a total of 1,000 questions and more are being submitted by March 22. I have assured that time will be given to the members to represent their issues in the assembly,” the Speaker said.
Parliamentary Affairs Minister Harshvardhan Chauhan was also present at the meeting. He said that the government is fully prepared to run the House. Whatever question the opposition and other members ask will be answered in the House.
On the other hand, Leader of the Opposition Jairam Thakur, while expressing his intentions on behalf of the opposition, said that answers will be sought from the government in the House on several issues.
“We will be taking up issues and answers will be sought from the government regarding the closure of institutions, along with other issues of public interest will be raised. Now it is up to the speaker of the assembly to decide whether to give time to the opposition as per the demand or not,” Thakur said.
“The opposition will give full cooperation in running the House,” the former CM said.
