Special session, voting must for Bill: YSRCP

Hyderabad, Dec 15 (INN): The President's note to take the opinion of the members and the assembly tantamount to voting on the draft Bill and the Speaker should ensure that the views of the legislators and the mood of the House is taken accordingly, YSR Congress has said and demanded that the issue should be taken up in a special session as this is a historic occasion.

'President Pranab Mukherjee writing a note on the draft Bill, to take the views of the members and opinion of the Assembly is a clear pointer to the State Government to thoroughly discuss the issue and go in for voting on the Bill which will give a clear picture for the Parliament to take up for further discussion,' party senior leader Dr MV Mysoora Reddy told reporters here on Sunday.

Our Party demands that the Speaker should follow the best practices of parliamentary democracy and give enough time to the members for discussing the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Bill-2013(draft) and this could be done only when a special session is convened with the single point agenda. The President's note which has asked to take mood of the House means that there needs to be voting and the result should be sent back to Delhi, he said.

We have given notice to the Speaker under rule 77 for moving a resolution on a united State after discussion and other Parties too have given similar notice which the Speaker has admitted.

'We demand that the Speaker should allow discussion giving enough time to every member who wants to express his or her view on the subject and finally go for voting to get a comprehensive summary of the proceedings. Since this is historic Bill and the matter has to be further discussed in the parliament, there need not be any whip and the members can vote as per their conscience,' he said.

Unless there is a special session all members who want to air their views will not get a chance to speak and unless there is a voting the mood of the House will not be known and the Speaker should conduct himself in a way that would uphold the dignity of the Chair and he should follow the President's note in the true letter and spirit.

Taking objection to the way in which the draft Bill copies have come to town and was cleared at a quick pace, he said, a secretary in the Union Home Ministry has no right to interfere with the administration of the State. He is within his right to handover the copies to the Chief Secretary and even to Chief Minister and not to all others.

In normal course, the Bill take four to five days to reach to the Speaker's Secretariat from Chief Secretary, but here it got the clearances of four Department heads, went to the Chief Minister, to the Governor and back to Chief Minister who sent it to Speaker, all in a hurry in just 10 hours as they burnt the midnight oil going against the Service rules. Working at the behest of Centre, giving a go by to the rules, is against the federal spirit, he said.

Chief Minister, who claims to be the champion of Samaikhyandhra, has yielded to the pressure of Digvijay Singh and Centre by sending the draft Bill to speaker at a high speed. If he is sincere in what he says he is, he should make it open the run of file from Chief Secretary to Speaker between Thursday 7.00 pm to Friday 2.00 pm.

As the Bill is important it needs to be discussed in a special session and as the President wanted to know the mood of the House there should be voting and members can vote as per their conscience and there need not be any whip, he said.