Andhra Assembly session from Thursday

The business advisory committee decided to take up other business as Telangana Bill is yet to come from President

The business advisory committee (BAC) of the Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly headed by speaker Nadendla Manohar on Wednesday decided the agenda for a brief session starting Thursday, which did not include the crucial debate on the state reorganisation Bill.

Legislature party representatives of various political parties, who attended the BAC meeting, said that the Speaker had decided to call for yet another meeting when the draft Bill comes from the President of India. The officials expected the Bill to come by Wednesday though no such indications were visible till the BAC meeting was over.

However, Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) legislative party leader E Rajender said they had received the information that the draft Bill was on its way. The delay was attributed to the President’s visit to South Africa following the death of the anti-apartheid leader and former South African president Nelson Mandela.

A section of the government officials are now expecting that the Bill would be sent to chief secretary P K Mohanty in a day or two though the timing of it being debated on the floor of the House has remained unclear for now.

As the President is expected to give four-six weeks time for the state Legislative Assembly to give its opinion on the draft Bill, the government has a flexibility to conduct one more session to specially debate the Bill, some argued.

On the first day, the Assembly will pay homage to Nelson Mandela and also to those sitting and the former MLAs who died recently. The BAC meeting also decided to include issues related to recent crop damage among other problems. The meeting also agreed to extend the sessions to seven working days from the earlier three-to five-day session.