The recently concluded Budget session of the Gujarat Assembly was probably the first conducted without a Leader of the Opposition (LoP), as neither the Congress - which returned its lowest tally of 17 seats - nor the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) that won five seats have the requisite numbers for claiming the post. With the ruling BJP comprising 156 of the 182 seats, the 115-hour Session saw no adjournments, even though it ended on a sour note, after a veteran BJP leader and former minister Ramanlal Vora threatened to drag the government to court over developmental works not done in his constituency of Idar. The Independent MLAs in the Assembly also support the BJP. The House for the first time saw a public event organised for MLAs to celebrate Holi, apart from a cricket tournament with BJP MLAs, mediapersons and officials of the Assembly Secretariat participating. While the Congress "boycotted" both, the AAP told The Indian Express it was willing, but was "not included". AAP MLA Chaitar Vasava said, “All of us had expressed our willingness to participate in the cricket tournament. Our Sudhirbhai (Vaghani, the Gariadhar MLA) is a good cricket player. I, too, play cricket. We were happy that such a tournament was being organised. However, when teams were finalised, we were not included in any of them. All the teams only had BJP MLAs.” Congress chief whip C J Chavda said, “The celebration of Holi and the cricket tournament during the Budget session were a BJP ploy to put people's issues on the backburner.” During the course of the Budget Session that began February 23, six Bills were passed, including the Gujarat Public Examination (Prevention of Unfair Means) Bill, 2023 and Gujarat Compulsory Teaching and Learning of Gujarati Language Bill, 2023. Five private member's Bills were discussed, and four private member's resolutions passed, including one moved by the BJP MLA from Sojitra, Vipul Patel, seeking “strict” action against the BBC for airing a “fabricated” documentary that was used as a “toolkit” to “defame” Prime Minister Narendra Modi and "destabilise India". Opposition MLAs complained that they did not get enough time to speak. Members of the Congress were suspended from the House on three occasions for contempt of the House, on issues related to a man found illegally getting training at Karai Police Academy, the replacing of the prasad at Ambaji temple, Kiran Patel (the conman arrested by Jammu & Kashmir police for posing as an official of Prime Minister's Office), and on Rahul Gandhi's disqualification as MP, etc. “We raised people's issues as much as we could in the House and outside it. Issues of Kiran Patel and Adani's dealings were very important, but could not be discussed," Chavda said. However, he praised the approach of Speaker Shankar Chaudhary in ensuring that a discussion was held on maximum questions during Question hour. A government release said that 231 starred questions were discussed in the House, or an average of 9.6 questions per sitting. In all, answers to 2,475 starred questions were put up before the House during the session. On the last day of the session, Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel also launched a YouTube channel of the Gujarat Assembly. The channel is expected to put out videos of various programmes being held at the Assembly building. The Gujarat Assembly is among those in the country whose proceedings are not live streamed. AAP's Chaitar Vasava said, “Instead of Holi celebrations and cricket, they should ensure that proceedings of the House are live streamed so that people can see the performance of their elected representatives.”
