The Winter Session of Haryana Vidhan Sabha, starting on December 17 has been extended till December 22.
The decision to extend the session was taken during the Business Advisory Committee meeting held on Thursday here. Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar, Deputy Chief Minister Dushyant Chautala, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kanwar Pal, Home Minister Anil Vij, Leader of Opposition Bhupendra Singh Hooda, Deputy Speaker Ranbir Gangwa were present in the meeting presided over by Speaker Gian Chand Gupta.
Before the BAC meeting, the Speaker also held a high-level meeting regarding the security arrangements in which Leader of the Opposition Bhupinder Singh Hooda and senior police officers of Haryana and Chandigarh were present.
After the meetings, the Speaker said that the winter session of the State Assembly will begin at 2:00 pm on December 17 amidst tight security along with following the COVID- 19 protocol.
It has been decided to hold the winter session till December 22. It is for the first time that a BAC meeting was held a day before the beginning of the Assembly session, he said.
The State Government had earlier recommended convening the session from December 17-21.
Gupta said that he wants to give maximum opportunities to all the MLAs of the state to express their views on various key issues during the winter session. In this connection, Zero Hour has been started in Haryana Vidhan Sabha on the lines of Lok Sabha, he said.
The Speaker said that 273 starred and 173 unstarred questions have been received by the Legislative Assembly Secretariat for the winter session. The draw has been done for the first three days of the session. The draw for the Question Hour to be held on December 22 will be held on December 17. Along with this, the MLAs have also sent 33 calling attention motions, he said.
During the BAC meeting, the Chief Minister Manohar Lal said that the State Government is in favor of making the session more and more effective and certainly there should be a comprehensive discussion on the topics of interest to the state.
Notably, at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccination has been made mandatory for MLAs, officers and employees attending the winter session of Haryana Assembly. Those who will not be able to get even one dose of vaccination by December 17 due to any reason will have to bring the negative report of the RT-PCR test conducted before 72 hours.