The seventh conference of Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA), India Region, will be held for the first time in Uttar Pradesh from Thursday.
Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla will formally inaugurate the conference. He is the chairperson of the CPA’s India chapter.
Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman Harivansh, UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and Madhya Pradesh Governor Lalji Tandon will also participate in the conference.
The CPA executive committee met here on Wednesday to formally approve the agenda of the two-day conference. The executive committee members are Bihar Assembly Speaker Vijay Kumar Choudhury, Assam Assembly Speaker Hitendra Nath Goswami, Uttarakhand Assembly Speaker Prem Chand Agarwal, Himachal Pradesh Assembly Speaker Rajiv Bindal, Rajasthan Assembly Speaker CP Bindal and UP Assembly Speaker Hriday Narayan Dikshit and the Lok Sabha secretary general.
Dikshit said in a press conference here on Wednesday that UP Governor Anandiben Patel would be the chief guest at the closing ceremony on January 17.
Om Birla will brief the media about the outcome of the conference on January 17 after the closing ceremony.
Dikshit said the sixth CPA conference of India region was held in Bihar in February 2918. Earlier this conference was held in Goa, Chhattisgarh, New Delhi and Hyderabad.
The CPA comprises nation states which were former colonies of the British Empire.
The CPA was established in 1911 as Empire Parliamentary Association, with the objective of regular discussion and exchange of parliamentary views and information among the members of the Commonwealth Parliament and to promote the advancement of democracy. In 1948, it was renamed as Commonwealth Parliamentary Association.
A separate secretariat — the Commonwealth secretariat — was established in London for managing and directing its public affairs.
Around 100 delegates, including speakers and deputy speakers of 15 state assemblies and chairperson and deputy chairperson of two legislative councils are attending this conference. Two foreign delegates and observers, one from Australia and another from Malaysia, have also arrived here to attend the conference.
The main theme of the two-day conference is ‘role of legislators’ and there would be two plenary sessions, one on each day.
On the first day, the topic of discussion would be ‘capacity building of legislators for scrutinising budgetary proposals’ which will be chaired by Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman Harivansh.
The second day’s topic will be ‘enhancing focus of legislators on legislative business’, in which Union Minister for Minority Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi will deliver the key note address. UP Assembly Speaker Hriday Narayan Dikshit will also address the session.
On January 18, the delegates will be taken for a visit to Ayodhya and some other places and sightseeing in Lucknow. The delegates will leave for their respective destinations on January 19.