SHILLONG, Aug 23: An amendment motion to the time table proposed by the Business Advisory Committee (BAC) for the Assembly’s autumn session moved by opposition Voice of the People Party (VPP) was rejected by the House on Friday.
“The Nos have it and the amendment of motion is rejected by the House,” Speaker Thomas A Sangma said after the motion was put to vote.
Before putting the motion to vote, the Speaker had assured the member that he would extend the time if required.
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“I am giving the assurance that if the need arises, I will extend the time but not the days of the session,” he said.
Despite the chair’s request to withdraw, Nongrum said, “I respect your request but I will not withdraw the amendment motion.”
While moving the motion, Nongrum said that the allocation of five working days, with only two days for private members’ business is too short a time for the state legislature to do justice to the many pressing issues concerning the state that require the urgent attention of this august House which meets only twice a year.
“I fear that limiting this current Assembly session to only a few days is really like curtailing the ‘voice of the people’. And by that I don’t mean just the voice of the party that I proudly represent, but the voice of the people of our respective constituencies who have plenty of expectation from us, their elected representation and from this august House, for their many issues and concerns to be raised and heard,” he said while demanding the need to extend the current session.
In his reply, deputy chief minister incharge parliamentary affairs Prestone Tynsong said that the BAC had already discussed in detail and in fact in the last autumn session also the time allotted was five working days.
“That day in the BAC meeting, from the government side we said we need only 3 days then we said okay for private members’ business we have two days. By convention, we already decided in case if need be one-three hours sitting can be extended and accordingly we proposed and passed this and I request the House to adopt the calendar,” he said while assuring that the issue raised by the member will be discussed in the next meeting of the BAC.
He said that extending the days of the current session will not at all arise. (NNN)
