The Congress and the BJP on Friday rejected the State Government-appointed five-member committee to study the functioning of legislative Councils in other States before such a council is set up in Odisha. The two Opposition parties questioned the process adopted for formation of the committee. leader of Opposition Narasingha Mishra of the Congress said his party would stay away from the committee as it has been formed with the party being consulted before. Moreover, the Government has made the whole move for an Upper House without taking the Opposition parties into account, he said.
BJP legislature Party leader Basant Panda said, “It seems the Government is in a tearing hurry to form a legislative Council to rehabilitate ruling party members who lost the elections or did not get party ticket. It has not even bothered to inform the BJP’s member who has been made a member of the committee, the legislature Party leader or even the party president, who is also a member of the Assembly before announcing the committee’s formation.”
Ideally, it is the party which should nominate its member in the committee and not the Government, he said. Panda said an all-party meeting should be called over the issue. “We would have accepted it had it been done by the Speaker,” he said. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) also opposed the move to constitute a legislative Council. A party Press release said the people of the State would not get any benefit from such a council, for which crores of rupees would be spent every year from the State exchequer.
The CPI(M) dubbed the move as an exercise for rehabilitation of politicians. In his reaction, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Bikram Keshari Arukh, however, said he expected the BJP would ultimately cooperate with the Government in the process of setting up of a legislative Council. Arukh had on Wednesday announced the committee. While there BJD MlAs Nrusingha Sahu, Pramila Mallick and Manohar Randhari were named as the committee’s members, Bhujbal Majhi was named from the Congress and Nitesh Gangdev from the BJP.
The Minister had said the committee would visit Maharashtra and Karnataka later this month to study the functioning of the legislative Councils there and submit a report to the Government by the end of this month. The BJP and the Congress have been critical of the Government’s decision to go for a legislative Council and have termed it as a rehabilitation scheme for many new entrants into the BJD who need to be satiated by the party to keep the flock together.