The crucial monsoon session of the state legislature beginning from Monday is all set to be a stormy one with the opposition aiming to corner the Akhilesh Yadav government over various issues, including law and order, and corruption.
The week-long Assembly session, which is slated to end on August 30, will approve the supplementary budget and also give its assent to the Constitutional Amendment Bill of Goods and Services Tax (GST). It is likely to approve some ordinances on setting up private universities besides taking up an amendment bill on hiking the salaries of the Chief Minister and his Council of Ministers.
The supplementary budget is expected to be tabled on August 23, the first working day as the opening day is reserved for obituary references, and it will be approved the next day.
The GST Bill will be approved on August 24.
The opposition, particularly the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party, will be on their toes along with the Congress and the Rashtriya lok Dal members during the entire session, raising several people-related issues like law and order, corruption, development, floods, Dalit atrocities, non-payment of dues to the cane farmers among others.
A senior official of the Assembly said that as this could be the last session before the polls, hence the members would raise their constituency matters to get more attention from the government.
Assembly Speaker Mata Prasad Pandey convened an all-party meeting and requested opposition and treasury members for smooth conduct of the House. Gayacharan Dinkar attended this meeting as leader of opposition.
Suresh Khanna (BJP), Pradeep Mathur (Congress) and Dalveer Singh (RlD) attended the meeting.
Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav said that opposition support was must for the smooth conduct of the House proceedings.
"The legislature business is important because the voices of poor and downtrodden are raised by members. Many issues are brought to the notice of the government and it takes appropriate action," he said.
later, Dinkar said that the opposition parties would grill the government for its failure to give clean administration and question it over rise in crime against women and atrocities on Dalits.
BJP legislature Party leader Suresh Kumar Khanna said his party members would corner the government on law and order.
"Our main focus will be on illegal mining, floods, corruption and bad roads," he said.
Congress legislature Party leader Pradeep Kumar Mathur and RlD leader Dalveer Singh also said that their parties would raise people related issues.
However, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Mohammad Azam Khan said the government was ready for discussion as per the rule of the House on any issue raised by the opposition. "But creating noisy scenes and obstructing the functioning of the House will not help the opposition," he said.
This time the scenario of the House will be different as more than a dozen MlAs have switched political allegiance. The Vidhan Sabha will have a new leader of opposition in Gayacharan Dinkar as the former lOP Swami Prasad Maurya has joined the BJP.
Many legislators from Congress, BSP and SP have also switched sides.