Govt winds up session a week ahead of schedule

MUMBAI, APRIL 21: Fearing fresh onslaught by the Sena-BJP combine and growing disquiet among the legislators of the NCP, the alliance gove...

MUMBAI, APRIL 21: Fearing fresh onslaught by the Sena-BJP combine and growing disquiet among the legislators of the NCP, the alliance government on Thursday abruptly wound up the budget session, which was scheduled to conclude on April 28.

Though Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh said that the session was curtailed because of the gram panchayat elections and the acute shortage of drinking water in villages which needed the government’s urgent attention, leader of Opposition Narayan Rane charged that the Chief Minister lacked the courage to face the Opposition on the floor of the House.

“We are not afraid of the Opposition. We decided to curtail it since many legislators had requested it as they wanted to tackle the drinking water problem in their constituencies and also participate in the gram panchayat elections. Anyway, the statutory business before both Houses was over so the Cabinet moved the proposal before the Business Advisory Committee,” Deshmukh defended.

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The Chief Minister said during the four week budget session, a record number of 19 legislations including the appropriation bill were passed, while the much publicised bill to provide for the removal of post-1995 hutments and another bill to empower the governor for the dismissal of the Vice-Chancellor could not be introduced.

On his Cabinet expansion plan, Deshmukh said the cabinet expansion as well as the nominations to the state-run enterprises and statutory committees will be made in the first week of may. “The cabinet expansion will be done in consultation with the constituent partners. It will be reorganisation of the cabinet,” Deshmukh said. It is over denial of ministerial berths and delay in doling out plum posts in state enterprises that MLAs of the ruling alliance are exercised.

Rane and BJP leader Gopinath Munde rejected the argument. “If that is the case, then no sessions should ever be held because there is some problem all the time,” Rane said.

They said the session was curtailed because of the possibility of defeat of the government due to discontent among the constituent partners. “Every one knows that a section of the legislators of the ruling front are unhappy with the government and there is a real possibility of revolt,” Rane pointed out.

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Rane said it was unfortunate that for the first time in the history of the legislative assembly, the Opposition-sponsored last-week motion could not be moved. “We had proposed the last-week motion on the deteriorating law and order situation, but now there will be no debate on that since the session has been abruptly curtailed,” Rane said.

Rane and Munde said the alliance took the Congress-led Democratic Front government to task on the drastic cut in the security cover provided to Sena supremo Bal Thackeray and the Abu Asim Azmi episode. “We took the Vilasrao Deshmukh government to task almost every day,” Rane said.

Meanwhile, in a related development, 40 Sena-BJP members submitted a no confidence motion against speaker Arun Gujarathi. “We submitted the notice in the speaker’s office,” Rane said.