By Our Staff Reporter
Dehradun, 28 Mar: The fifth assembly of Uttarakhand will have its first session from tomorrow onwards. This session is expected to be three days long. Till Monday evening, the Ministers had not been allocated their portfolios and therefore not much serious business is expected to be conducted during the session except a Vote on Account in place of a regular budget for the Financial Year 2022-23. Even the main opposition party, the Congress, could not declare its Leader of the Opposition till Monday evening, though a meeting was held today in this regard.
As part of preparations for the session, a meeting of the Business Advisory Committee was held today under the chairmanship of newly elected Speaker Ritu Khanduri. The meeting discussed the conduct of business and legislative work for the first session and, in particular, for the first day tomorrow.
Parliamentary Affairs Minister Premchand Agarwal, MLA Khajan Das, Bahujan Samajwadi Party Legislative Party leader Haji Mohammed Shahzad were present during the committee meeting held in the Vidhan Sabha building, here. During the meeting, the agenda of the House on 29 March was discussed, in which it was decided that the Vote on Account for this financial year would be placed on the table along with the Governor’s address on the first day of the session. It was decided that a meeting of the Business Advisory Committee would be convened again to discuss business for other days of the session.
Talking to reporters after the meeting, the Speaker said that it would be a proud moment for her to conduct the House for the first time as Speaker. At the same time, it was a challenge for her as well. She said that she expected the cooperation of all the members of the House for its peaceful and smooth conduct. The Speaker said that the issues raised in the public interest and development of the state would be discussed positively in the House.
Khanduri assured that she would provide equal opportunities to all the members of the ruling party and as well as the opposition members. Her effort would be to strengthen the democratic institutions to fulfil the hopes and aspirations of the people. The welfare of the public could be achieved by keeping a watchful eye on the executive, by making the House the centre of wide ranging discussion and dialogue for the formulation of policies and laws and matters in public interest.
Present at the meeting were Principal Secretary of the Assembly Heera Singh Bonal, Secretary of the Assembly Mukesh Singhal and other officials.
