Even as the State Assembly was not functioning normally due to a pandemonium created by both the Opposition and the Treasury bench members, the House on Thursday adopted a motion to reduce the number of sitting days in a calendar year.
Though it was mandated since 2005 that the sitting days of the Assembly would be at least 60 days in a calendar year as per the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in Odisha legislative Assembly, with adoption of the new motion the House could reduce the number of its sitting days.
Government chief whip Ananta Das moved the motion saying, “provided that the House may reduce the sitting days of the Assembly in a calendar year,” which was adopted during the post-lunch session of the Assembly.
Das moved the motion as per the recommendation of the Rule Committee meeting which was held on November 25. However, the Opposition Congress and BJP strongly opposed the motion terming it as “undemocratic”. “I differ with the decision of the Rules Committee in respect of amendments proposed by the 13 members to the recommendation laid in the House,” said Congress member Anshuman Mohanty, the lone member from the Opposition in the Rules Committee. Mohanty, on the other hand, viewed that the recommendations of the Rules Committee should be different.
“It should be like ‘provided that the House may reduce the sitting days of the Assembly in a calendar year by adopting a motion unanimously to that effect,” Mohanty maintained.
BJP member Pradip Purohit, who moved an amendment to the motion, accused the Government of adopting a motion with its brute majority. BJP legislature Party leader Basat Kumar Panda said, “We demand that there be no change in the number of the sitting days.”
Supporting the motion, Parliamentarty Affairs Minister Bikram Keshari Arukh said that though there had been a provision of minimum 60 days’ sitting since 2005, the desired goal had been met only twice, once each in 2006 and 2013.