Opposition leader YS Jaganmohan Reddy took strong objection to the constitution of general purposes committee (GPC)and convening the meeting on August 11, at a time when the entire opposition party would be away in New Delhi for a dharna.
In a six-page letter written to Assembly speaker Kodela Siva Prasadrao and chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu he deplored that they were violating conventions of the Assembly in setting up committees.
Questioning the motive of the formation of the committee, which was long forgotten, Jagan said the committee was fully loaded with members of ruling party and principle of proportionate representation was conveniently ignored.
He said the agenda of the meeting also was not conveyed to the opposition party.
The general purposes committee normally advises on the affairs of the House.
The present committee has 25 members including the speaker. What is surprising that out of 24 members 21 are from ruling party and remaining three are from the YSRC. Jagan questioned the logic behind the disproportion of the members from the ruling and opposition parties.
The YSRC president alleged that the speaker office refused to inform his MLA of the agenda of the meeting when approached.
He suspected that the meeting was being convened only to justify and get ratification for the removal of YS Rajasekhar Reddy’s portrait from the Assembly Hall with brute majority.
Jagan listed out 19 points the party going to raise in the next session of Assembly.
The list of issues include Cash-for-vote scam, causes for the stampede during Pushkaralu in Rajahmundry, TDP MLA Chintamaneni Prabhakar’s attack on MRO Vanajakshi, Rishiteswari suicide and the government’s attempt to shield culprits, scam in the Pattiseema lift irrigation project, modification of barytes mining tenders, coal scam, business deals in the name of Capital construction through the controversial Swill Challenge method, Job for each family, unemployment allowance etc.
By convening GPC meeting, Jagan alleged, the government was planning to sabotage the raising of these issues in the next session of the Assembly.
The alleged that there was a clear motive to bypass the opposition party in calling the general purpose committee meeting on August 11, even though YSRC dharna on August 10 in Jantar Manar, New Deli for special status had been notified much in advance.
Jagan demanded the speaker to scrap the committee which was not once convened when TDP was in power between 1995-2004 or constitute the committee by giving proportionate representation to the parties in the House.
He advised speaker to fix the date of the meeting on a mutually convenient day and to keep the opposition posted with the agenda well in advance.
