VPP not to disrupt Phagu Chauhan’s speech in Assembly
SHILLONG, Feb 15: The shortest budget session in the history of the Meghalaya Legislative Assembly will begin on Friday.
Preempting the Lok Sabha elections, the eight-day budget session has been moved to February from March.
Three days will be dedicated to private member’s business and five days for government business.
On Friday, the first day of the session, Governor Phagu Chauhan will address the House in Hindi. Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma will digitally present the full budget for the fiscal year 2024–25 on February 21.
Various bills and ordinances will be tabled and discussed in the House during the session, which ends on February 27. A divided opposition is likely to bring up a number of state-related concerns.
On the eve of the Budget session, the VPP on Thursday made it clear that there would be no opposition from their side to the Governor’s address in Hindi as the Assembly Speaker has already made arrangements for translation but maintained that they have an aversion to it and requested the Centre to appoint Governors for Meghalaya who can speak in English.
“There will be no opposition as we have already welcomed the decision of the Speaker to have the translation,” VPP spokesperson Batskhem Myrboh said.
The VPP had earlier declared that they would not attend the Governor’s address, if he speaks in Hindi.
The VPP spokesperson, however said, “As a matter of principal we dislike this and we request the central government that when they appoint Governors to Meghalaya they should be conscious about the sentiments of the people.”
Meanwhile, the ruling MDA MLAs huddled up at the Chief Minister’s residence here on Thursday to discuss issues and to chalk out a strategy for the Budget session.
“Before every session we sit together and we discuss issues. The chief minister apprised us about the government business that is being brought and it was attended by all the MDA partners,” Cabinet Minister and NPP working president Marcuise N Marak said, while asserting that the MDA was prepared for the session in all aspects.