IMPHAL, Aug 26: The Business Advisory Committee (BAC) of the
Manipur Legislative Assembly, in its meeting held in Imphal on
Saturday, decided to hold the upcoming session of the
Assembly only for a day.
After the Manipur Governor has summoned the 4th session of
the 12th Manipur Legislative Assembly at 11 am on August 29,
the Speaker of Manipur legislative Assembly convened the
meeting to decide the number of sittings of the session today,
an official source said.
Meanwhile, the opposition Congress strongly condemned the
decision of holding the session only for one day and demanded
increasing the number of sittings.
Leader of the opposition Congress and former chief minister O
Ibobi Singh who attended the meeting as a member of the
Business Advisory Committee expressed unhappiness with the
decision to hold the session for a day only.
Addressing a press conference at Congress Bhavan here, the
former three times chief minister raised a strong objection to
the decision.
In protest against the decision, he is likely to abstain from
attending the session, he hinted, saying that it is early to say
whether he would attend the session on August 29 or not.
As a member of the Business Advisory Committee, he attended
the meeting convened at the committee room of the state
Assembly and strongly suggested to at least five sittings so that
the issues in the fore of the state and the prevailing crisis can
be deliberated thoroughly, he said.
However, without any consideration to his suggestion, the
meeting decided to hold the session only for a day, he said.
Holding only one sitting is not enough as most of the time of
the house would be consumed while taking obituary reference
for the former members of the house demised during the mid
of the session, Ibobi also said.
There would be little time for the members of the house to
speak on the prevailing crisis in the state which the Congress
considered as the most important agenda for convening the
session, he said.
He said that if there is no opportunity to express their opinions
and comments to the members of the house, it would amount
to violation of the rights of the members.
Besides, it will happen to go against the wishes of the people of
the state, Ibobi further added.
The opposition leader alleged that considering the manner in
which the government decided to hold the session for only a
day, it would not be wrong to say that the session is to be held
only to avoid a constitutional crisis.
He said that the session to be held on August 29 would not be
in the public interest.
It will also be the first time in the history of Manipur that such a
session would be held only for the name sake to avoid a
constitutional crisis, he added.
Reiterating that he strongly opposed the decision taken by the
committee, Ibobi said that he walked out of the meeting after
submitting a dissent note to the Speaker.
Apart from the CLP leader, sitting Congress MLAs including
MPCC president K Meghachandra were also present in the
press conference and expressed their opposition to the
decision of the Business Advisory Committee while alleging the
session is to be unconstitutional.
