By Our Reporter
SHILLONG: A week-long Assembly session is scheduled to be held from September 9, official sources said here on Wednesday. This is more to fulfill constitutional requirements rather than dispose off any major official business. The Legislature is bound to meet once every six months.
The last session was held in March this year. Some MLAs have lamented the lack of seriousness on the part of the Government which is evident from the truncated session which prevents them from raising issues of public importance.
“The short session is just a formality to comply with provisions of the Constitution,” said one MLA, adding that not many burning issues facing the State are likely to be discussed.
Leader of the Opposition Conrad Sangma said, “We have always criticised the government’s propensity to have short sessions because the questions raised are not adequately addressed.
But the plaint of the ruling party has always been that there are not enough motions and questions. They forget that even the motions raised are not satisfactorily disposed off,” said Sangma, adding that if the Government holds the session for one month then they would come up with that many questions and motions.
“If Government holds a session for one week how can we come up with questions for a one-month long session?” Sangma queried.
“What worries me is that the government will not have a Winter session and that it will move straight to the Budget session in March next year. This means that there will be no mid-year assessment on implementation of schemes. One week is too short a time to assess the government’s performance over a whole year,” Sangma observed.