First session of AP Assembly from today

Seesion would be in the historical century-old building which has been witness to the emergence of state legislature

The first session of the Andhra Pradesh Assembly post the division of the state will be held  here from Thursday  in a historical century-old building, which has been witness to the emergence of state legislature.

Constructed as a Town hall in 1913, the building was converted into Hyderabad State Legislative Assembly in 1952. Even  after the formation of Andhra Pradesh state in 1956, it continued to be the house of the state legislature till 1985, when a new Assembly building was inaugurated.

Though known for its architectural splendour, the old Assembly building looks a bit cramped compared with the new one. Not only the elected representatives, even officials and mediapersons, whose number had grown manifold since 1985, have to cope with limited space availability.    

The five-day session begins with protem Speaker, P Narayanaswamy, administering oath  of office to the newly-elected members of the Assembly.

Thereafter,  a condolence resolution will be adopted by the House  paying homage to  MLA-elect T Prabhakar Rao, who died of heart attack a couple of days ago.

According to the schedule, the election of Speaker and deputy Speaker of the 175-member House would be held on June 20.  Governor, ESL Narasimhan, would address a joint session of the legislative Council and Assembly on June 21.

After a day’s break, the House would debate on the motion of thanks to the Governor’s address. The session would wind up after a reply to the debate by chief minister, N Chandrababu Naidu.

The Opposition YSR Congress Party took objection for not including the name of  Sobha Nagi Reddy in the condolence resolution to be adopted by the House.

Sobha,  who was posthumously elected as MLA from the Allagadda constituency, died in an accident during electioneering in the run-up to the 2014 polls. However, the Election Commission did not countermand elections in Allagadda  as the YSRCP, which fielded her, was not a recognised party.