With the objective of good governance and effective control of State legislature over the executive, Assembly Speaker Hridya Naryan Dikshit said there should be a minimum of 90 sittings of the House every year. He said it was for the first time in Parliamentary history of the State that the Government wanted to have a minimum of 90 sittings a year.
“More sittings of the Assembly helps the cause of good governance and ensures accountability of the bureaucracy towards people and their elected representatives. If the time is stretched, more and more issues under different rules of business could be raised by members of the House,’’ said Dikshit while addressing a press conference in lucknow on Friday.
A two-day training and orientation programme for members elected for the first time to the UP Assembly concluded in lucknow on Thursday.
“For the first time in parliamentary history of UP, the Chief Minister also desires that there should be minimum 90 sittings of the Assembly every year. It’s a unique occasion that the Treasury wants to ensure a minimum number of sessions in a calendar year,’’ said Dikshit.
The Speaker said that earlier demand for longer session of the Assembly was made by Opposition benches and this was the first time when Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has expressed his resolve for a minimum 90-day session of the Assembly.
Dikhsit said, “We hope that the Opposition parties would extend their cooperation in meeting the goal set by the Chief Minister in this regard.”
“UP assembly has a dismal record in terms of number of sittings of the House annually. During the 15th Assembly (2007-12), there were only 90 sittings in five years and the total time of session in five years was 463 hours and 41 minutes,’’ said Dikshit. He added, “The situation marginally improved in 16th assembly and the number of sittings increased to 132 days and 632 hours and 47 minutes in five years.’’Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati was the Chief Minister during the 15th Assembly and Akhilesh Yadav was at the helm during the previous 16th Assembly.
Dikshit said that the two-day training and orientation program for new MlAs was hugely successful as members from all parties participated with enthusiasm.
“Apart from the MlAs, leader of Opposition Ram Govind Chaudhary, former Assembly Speaker and BSP MlA Sukhdeo Rajbhar, senior Congress leader and former Deputy Speaker Ammar Rizvi were present during the programme for two days.
Asking new members of the House to be careful about their conduct, the Speaker said, “There can never be two standards for the conduct of MlA, inside the House and outside it. So they need to pay attention on their conduct.’’ Dikshit asked the new members to participate in proceedings of the House by raising more and more issues of their respective constituencies concerning the common people and redressal of those issues.