Mumbai: After the conclusion of the four-week budget session of the Maharashtra Legislature on Wednesday, the opposition strongly criticised the Mahayuti government for devoting more time to the Aurangzeb grave or Kunal Kamra show, bypassing the core issues during the session.
The opposition legislators comprising Jayant Patil, Nana Patole, Bhaskar Jadhav and Jitendra Awhad also criticised the ruling alliance for disrupting the House proceedings and its attempt to undermine the opposition due to their smaller numbers. They also claimed that less time was devoted to opposition during various debates and also taking up calling attention motions.
“The Constitution that we discussed in the legislature for two days is being repeatedly trampled upon. I have been working in the legislature for 36 years now. I have seen the Congress party, which had a huge majority, but the Congress party has never done anything to suppress the voice of the opposition. Giving due share to the opposition is the responsibility of the ruling party, which is not being followed now,” claimed NCP-SP legislator Jayant Patil.
“Even though we are few in number, it was our responsibility to raise issues of various sections as their representatives. Therefore, we raised key issues during the discussion to bring them to the government’s notice. In this session, the House worked for 147 hours, of which 1 hour and 45 minutes were wasted by the ruling party. Nine bills were passed in this session. How much time was spent discussing these bills? Then where did the 147 hours go? Four proposals of the ruling party and three of ours were not discussed sufficiently. Then it is time to think about what was discussed. Not a single promise made before the elections is mentioned in the budget. With so many members being elected, this government has become unruly, it is behaving like a mad elephant,” criticised the Shiv Sena-UBT group leader Bhaskar Jadhav.
Congress legislator Nana Patole said that they have succeeded in fulfilling their role as an opposition in the session. “We tried to make the government talk about the issues of the people. But the government itself was busy raking up religious disputes. The lust for power was seen in this session. The ruling party tried to conclude the session not once but thrice, this is the first time in the history of the state. The government tried to hide the evidence of corruption cases that we gave,” he commented. Patole claimed that it was quite visible that the government was creating religious disputes and spoiling the atmosphere in progressive Maharashtra to hide its failure.
Meanwhile, the state Assembly Speaker Rahul Narvekar announced that the monsoon session of the state legislature will start from June 30 in Mumbai.
(IANS)
