Delhi: Legislative Assembly

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This is a collection of articles archived for the excellence of their content.

2018

Budget session: longest since 1995

Alok K N Mishra, House sees longest session in 23 years, April 10, 2018: The Times of India

The ongoing budget session of Delhi assembly has been the longest in 23 years. From March 16 when it began until Monday, it has had 15 sittings.

Originally scheduled to end on March 28, the session so far has had four extensions, the latest being on Monday. The 16th sitting will happen on Tuesday.

The previous highs were under BJP in 1994, when there were 21 sittings, and in 1995 when there were 18 sittings. In 1995, Madan Lal Khurana was the CM and the House met under the excitement of the formation of the first legislative assembly of Delhi.

There was barely any excitement among AAP MLAs when this session began as 19 of their most outspoken MLAs had been barred after their disqualification; only minister Kailash Gahlot was given immunity from this. The four opposition MLAs were greatly emboldened by this. This was reflected when they objected to the presence of Gahlot when while the LG was delivering his address.

But four days later, AAP got a shot in its arm when the Delhi high court restored these MLAs. Half of them attended the session hours after becoming MLAs again. The House saw the established practice of the first day of the budget session ending after the address of the LG being broken as important matters were taken up for discussion immediately after it. Though they flagged several key issues plaguing the people of their constituencies, including the sealing drive, much of the energy of the AAP MLAs was spent on attacking LG Anil Baijal who they claimed was “obstructing the work of the elected government”.

As the government claimed many of the MLAs’ questions were not answered by different departments, the bureaucracy and the LG came under heavy attack with the speaker pointing out that the “LG has advised him not to take questions of reserved subjects like police, land and services”. The speaker forwarded several matters that were not answered. After MLAs claimed that the officers don’t receive their calls or respond to SMSs, to tame the officers the House formed a protocol committee to examine violations by officers.

Though he attended several sittings, chief minister Arvind Kejriwal drew opposition flak for not giving enough time to the House. “Each member got multiple chances to raise issues of their constituencies. The saddest part was the officers were instructed not to give answers to questions related to police, land and services, which has never happened in the history of the assembly,” said AAP chief spokesperson Saurabh Bharadwaj.