Newmai News Network
Imphal: The Business Advisory Committee (BAC) of the Manipur Legislative Assembly, in its meeting held in Imphal today, decided to hold the upcoming session of the Assembly only for a day.
After the Manipur Governor has summoned the 4th session of the 12th Manipur Legislative Assembly at 11 am on August 29, the Speaker of Manipur legislative Assembly convened the meeting to decide the number of sittings of the session today, an official source said.
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Meanwhile, the opposition Congress strongly condemned the decision of holding the session only for one day and demanded increasing the number of sittings.
Leader of the opposition Congress and former chief minister O Ibobi Singh who attended the meeting as a member of the Business Advisory Committee expressed unhappiness with the decision to hold the session for a day only.
Addressing a press conference at Congress Bhavan here, the former three times chief minister raised a strong objection to the decision.
In protest against the decision, he is likely to abstain from attending the session, he hinted, saying that it is early to say whether he would attend the session on August 29 or not.
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As a member of the Business Advisory Committee, he attended the meeting convened at the committee room of the state Assembly and strongly suggested to at least five sittings so that the issues in the fore of the state and the prevailing crisis can be deliberated thoroughly, he said.
However, without any consideration to his suggestion, the meeting decided to hold the session only for a day, he said.
Holding only one sitting is not enough as most of the time of the house would be consumed while taking obituary reference for the former members of the house demised during the mid of the session, Ibobi also said.
There would be little time for the members of the house to speak on the prevailing crisis in the state which the Congress considered as the most important agenda for convening the session, he said.
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He said that if there is no opportunity to express their opinions and comments to the members of the house, it would amount to violation of the rights of the members.
Besides, it will happen to go against the wishes of the people of the state, Ibobi further added.
The opposition leader alleged that considering the manner in which the government decided to hold the session for only a day, it would not be wrong to say that the session is to be held only to avoid a constitutional crisis.
He said that the session to be held on August 29 would not be in the public interest.
It will also be the first time in the history of Manipur that such a session would be held only for the name sake to avoid a constitutional crisis, he added.
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Reiterating that he strongly opposed the decision taken by the committee, Ibobi said that he walked out of the meeting after submitting a dissent note to the Speaker.
Apart from the CLP leader, sitting Congress MLAs including MPCC president K Meghachandra were also present in the press conference and expressed their opposition to the decision of the Business Advisory Committee while alleging the session is to be unconstitutional.
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