By IANS,
Bhopal: President Pratibha Patil’s planned address to the Madhya Pradesh assembly on May 11 – the first day of a special session – has been cancelled, an assembly source said Tuesday.
“The assembly got the communication regarding the cancellation of the programme Sunday,” the source said.
“The president gave her consent to address the legislators last week but now her visit to Bhopal has been cancelled citing ‘unavoidable circumstances’,” the source added.
Congress legislators Govind Singh, Yadvendra Singh, Ranveer Jatav and Ramnivas Rawat, besides independent legislator Manvendra Singh, last week wrote a letter jointly to the president urging her to cancel her visit.
They alleged that the special session had been convened to glorify the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government despite the fact that the state suffered a lot during its rule.
Former state assembly secretary Vishwendra Mehta also wrote a letter to the president urging her to cancel her visit. “The special session is being convened in contravention of the rules,” he said.
A session can be convened only after the cabinet’s approval and the governor’s consent. But for the special session, the government sought Governor Rameshwar Thakur’s consent without seeking an approval from the cabinet, Mehta said.
He said the assembly’s business advisory committee approved the proposal for convening the special session despite having no authority to do so. “The committee is only meant for deciding the agenda and duration of a session,” he said.