By IANS,
Hyderabad : The monsoon session of the Andhra Pradesh assembly, believed to be the last before next year’s elections, began here Monday.
The house was adjourned after paying tributes to legislators M. Sikamani and Ch. Venkata Rao who died recently.
The 10-day session is likely to be a stormy one with opposition parties trying to put the government on the mat on various issues. The ruling Congress plans to highlight its achievements and accuse the opposition of creating hurdles in development process.
In an attempt to highlight the alleged failures of the government, the main opposition Telugu Desam Party (TDP) took out a ‘padyatra’ (walkathon) from NTR Ghat to the assembly.
Led by opposition leader and former chief minister N. Chandrababu Naidu, TDP legislators held banners and posters as they raised slogans against the “anti-people policies” of the government.
Naidu told reporters that the opposition would expose the failures of the government and raise issues like price rise, corruption, fertilizer and electricity shortages, and problems faced by farmers and artisans.
The legislators of the two Communist parties also walked to the assembly to highlight what they said were the government’s failures. But while Naidu stayed away from the customary breakfast hosted by Speaker K.R. Suresh Reddy, the leaders of the Communist parties attended it.
The TDP leaders later held talks with the Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS), Communist Party of India (CPI) and Communist Party of India Marxist (CPI-M) for close coordination on the floor of the house.
Meanwhile, the Business Advisory Committee (BAC) decided that it would be a 10-day session, lasting till Sep 6. It turned down the demand for extending the session by another 10 days. The BAC also rejected the demand of the opposition for evening sittings.
Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy agreed to have a debate on agriculture Tuesday.
As the elections are scheduled to be held in March next year, it is believed this will be the last session of the present assembly.
The government would use the session to highlight welfare measures like community health insurance scheme Arogyasri, irrigation programme Jalayagnam, pensions to six million people and successful implementation of Indiramma housing scheme.