Nagpur: MLC Abhijit Wanjari on Tuesday rushed a letter to chief minister Uddhav Thackeray, requesting him to extend the Maharashtra assembly monsoon session to six weeks.
The move came after the legislature’s Business Advisory Committee (BAC) declared that the forthcoming session would be held only for two days, July 5 and 6, due to threat of Covid-19 pandemic.
According to him, the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government had completed 19 months of its tenure, but none of the assembly sessions in this period were held beyond 15 days due to the coronavirus outbreak.
Even the budget session lasted for only ten days.
“Due to short sessions, MLAs and MLCs didn’t get the chance to highlight issues related to their constituencies and also of state and national importance.
Being ruling party members, we can’t conduct media conferences to raise issues pertaining to voters from our constituencies.
During the session, we get a chance to use various means like starred questions, calling attention, special mention and other motions to raise these issues,” the graduates’ constituency MLC from Vidarbha said.
In his letter, Wanjari submitted a detailed chart about number of days assembly sessions had lasted and hours in which both houses of legislature functioned.
“It would be clear that for the first time in legislature’s history, sessions were conducted for such a short time due to Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdowns to prevent the spread of deadly disease in last 19 months.
However, now, the effect of pandemic has substantially reduced with most districts heading towards zero cases.” Pointing at various sectors that are struggling due to pandemic effect, the former Nagpur University Senate and Management Council member said, in these 19 months the state was battered by incessant rains, drought, hailstorm, cyclones, floods and other natural disasters leading to massive loss to life and property.
“Even employment was adversely affected, and industrial and other growth slowed down due to lockdown.
The sectors like hospitality, tourism suffered the most with many losing jobs.
Therefore, there’s an urgent need to extend the session to six weeks, so that all such issues can be discussed and those in distress can be approached for help,” he said.