Jharkhand: LoP issue likely to dominate monsoon session

RANCHI: The upcoming five-day-long monsoon session of the Jharkhand Assembly is likely to be dominated by the pending issue of granting the leader of opposition status to senior BJP functionary Babulal Marandi. On Wednesday, the saffron party made it clear that it will not let go of any opportunity in order to the issue on floor of the house during the session.
State BJP president-cum-Rajya Sabha MP Deepak Prakash claimed that JMM and its alliance partners in the mahagathbandhan government, Congress and RJD, are trying to dictate the assembly.“They have the mandate to run the government but it seems that they want to decide the functioning of the assembly as well,” he said.
Taking strong exception to the fact that the assembly speaker did not invite Marandi to the all-parties meeting with the MLAs on Tuesday, Prakash said, “BJP has unanimously elected Marandi as the legislative party leader and intimated the speaker in this regard. Despite that Marandi was not invited to the meeting and that amounts to violation of democratic norms.”
The ongoing agitation by the assistant policemen at Morhabadi Ground is yet another issue which the opposition would like to highlight in the assembly. The protest has already found support from BJP and other political factions.
Meanwhile, the legislators are wary of any constructive work happening given the short period of the monsoon session. Though the session is for five days, beginning from Friday and concluding on Tuesday, work will take place on just three days in view of Saturday and Sunday being official holidays.
CPI(M-L) MLA Vinod Kumar Singh said first day of the session is adjourned after paying obituary remarks. “It has been a precedence that no concrete business occurs on the first day. So we are left with just two days to raise questions,” he added.
“Even if we have just two days, the time should not be wasted in creating ruckus and the MLAs must be given a chance to raise the issues,” Singh said. He informed that he is planning to raise issues like the plight of migrant labourers, lack of job opportunities in the state and the high rate of unemployment on the floor of the house.
Singh, along with Jamshedpur (East) MLA Saryu Rai, has already raised a demand to increase the working hours and commence the session from 10am instead of 11am.
Mandar MLA Bandhu Tirkey, who is a member of the ruling coalition, also said that only two days of assembly session can be challenging. Tirkey is all prepared to raise the issue of Land Mutation Amendment Bill. “The bill is supposed to be tabled in this session. So it must be debated properly so that the flaws can be highlighted,” he said.
The government is prepared to table the first supplementary budget on the first day and get it approved on Monday.
Understanding the need for making constructive use of the short session, speaker Ravindra Nath Mahto has appealed to both ruling and opposition members to show restraint and allow business to proceed.