Stormy UP assembly budget session from Thursday

The budget session of the Uttar Pradesh assembly begins Thursday amid apprehension that opposition parties like the BJP would stall proceedings over law and order situation in the state.

The budget for 2014-15 would be presented by Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, who holds the finance portfolio, June 20 and the session will go on till July 18.

Anticipating trouble, Speaker Mata Prasad Pandey Wednesday convened an all-party meeting and sought the support of all parties. However, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) did not attend the meeting.

Upbeat at the stunning victory in the April-May Lok Sabha elections, the party is said to be readying itself for an all-out offensive against the two-and-half-year-old Samajwadi Party government.

BJP leaders told IANS that among the main points they plan to put the state government on the mat are pending arrears of sugarcane growers and the failing law and order in the state.

Power crisis and growing crimes against women like the gang rape and murder of two minors in Badaun would form the core of Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) strategy during the session.

"This government is a helpless government which is presiding over anarchy," Leader of Opposition Swami Prasad Maurya told IANS, demanding the government should quit.

Pradeep Mathur, leader of the Congress Legislature Party (CLP), told IANS that the state was witnessing unprecedented situation in the wake of rising crimes and poor law and order, and added that party legislators would strongly raise the problems faced by the common man.

Akhilesh Yadav, meanwhile, said he expected all parties to follow parliamentary procedures and avoid bedlam, and instead partake in the proceedings and debate matters of public interest.