Bhubaneswar: Leader of Opposition (LoP), Pradipta Naik on Monday wrote to Speaker Surjya Narayan Patro seeking adequate representation of opposition parties in the Odisha Assembly Business Advisory Committee.
The committee, which is headed by Speaker Patro, have seven members- five from ruling-BJD and one each from BJP and Congress.
“In a democracy, the cooperation of Opposition is equally important for the government to raise various issues and problems of people and making policies to address the issues. In this context, we always extended cooperation for smooth functioning of the Assembly sessions,” Naik said in a letter to the Speaker.
As BJD has the maximum members in the panel, the party dominate the decision making regarding the schedule of the Odisha Assembly. The role of the Opposition in the decision making has become insignificant, Naik stated in the letter.
Naik urged the Speaker to take immediate steps to ensure adequate representation of the Opposition party in the Business Advisory Committee.
Naik further said that adequate time is not being given to opposition parties to raise various issues in the Assembly and discussions should be held on the budgetary allocations of the all the 43 departments instead of only 22 departments.
The government is scheduled to hold discussion on expenditures of the 22 departments from March 12.