All party pre-budget meet, Opposition demands extended session
Ranchi, February 22: Jharkhand Assembly Speaker Rabindra Nath Mahto on Thursday held an all-party meeting to discuss the strategy for smooth functioning of the House during the Budget session beginning Friday.
The Champai Soren government will table its first budget on February 27. The session will have seven working days and conclude on March 2.
Chief Minister Champai Soren, Leader of Opposition Amar Bauri and senior leaders of other parties attended the meeting.
“The budget session of the Jharkhand Assembly is beginning from Friday. So, a formal meeting was held with leaders of the political parties and various issues were discussed,” the Speaker told reporters.
Bauri and independent legislator Saryu Roy demanded that the Speaker raise the number of days of the session.
“This is the first budget of the Champai Soren government. This is an opportunity for the new chief minister to present his vision, direction and policies before the people of the state. We have requested the Speaker to increase the working days,” Bauri told reporters.
Roy said, “During the budget session, there should be a debate on the demands of every department. Earlier, there were budget sessions for 25-26 days. Then, it was reduced to 17-18 days. Now, it has been curtailed further, which is not good.” The chief minister, however, said that the budget session was kept short due to political circumstances in the state.
“The session will be fruitful and the budget will be in the interest of the state,” Soren said.
He added that the ruling coalition government is ready to reply to every question of the opposition in the House.
Senior JMM leader Champai Soren was sworn in as the Chief Minister after his predecessor Hemant Soren was arrested by the ED on January 31, shortly after he resigned as the chief minister.
Meanwhile, disgruntled 12 Congress MLAs will attend the budget session as the eight MLAs returned from Delhi on Thursday and said that there has been positive indication from the party high command to their grievances on changing old faces in the state cabinet from Congress quota.
