CM vs Speaker

Kiran wants to prorogue Assembly, Manohar in no mood to oblige him

• CM appears to create hurdles in getting T Bill passed by Assembly
• Experts say even if prorogued, Governor can reconvene the House
• Speaker is understood to have discussed the issue with Guv
• Meanwhile Shankar Rao makes no-trust move against Govt and CM

Hyderabad: A cold war seems to be brewing between the Chief Minister and the Speaker of the State Assembly. While Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy wants the Assembly prorogued, Speaker Nadendla Manohar does not appear to be in a mood to oblige him.

State Congress leaders have alleged that the Chief Minister who has been opposing the move to divide the state, after failing to convince the party leadership, is trying to create hurdles in the Centre’s move to seek the opinion of the state Assembly on the draft T Bill. As part of this process, Kiran is said to have written to the Speaker about 15 days back asking him to prorogue the Assembly. The Speaker’s office is yet to send its recommendation to the CMO. The Chief Minister’s camp feels that once the Assembly is prorogued, the powers to convene it again will rest with the Chief Minister and he can take his sweet time to call the House and delay the consideration of the draft Telangana Bill which President Pranab Mukherjee is expected to refer to the state Assembly in the last week of this month.

But constitutional experts say that in the case of the Assembly, the Speaker’s decision is final. Even the Governor is not bound to act under the advice of the council of ministers on this issue. The Governor, discharging his constitutional duty, had the special powers to reconvene the Assembly, he added.

It may be mentioned here that the Speaker soon after receiving the letter from the CMO called on Governor ESL Narsimhan and is understood to have discussed the issue with him.

It is being said that the Speaker is of the opinion that the House should not be prorogued now as it is due to meet for the winter session in December. Moreover, there were clear indications from the Centre that the draft T Bill would be sent to the Assembly by the end of November. Hence it would not be advisable to prorogue the House now and reconvene it after ten days the Speaker feels, according to sources.

Minister for Legislative Affairs D Sridhar Babu urged the Seemandhra leaders not to drag the office of the Speaker into any political controversy. He failed to understand as to why the government was in a hurry to prorogue the House now. This could be a sort of “conspiracy” by some Seemandhra leaders, he said and appealed to them to cooperate in the process of carving a separate Telangana.

Former Speaker Y Ramakrishnudu said there was no point in seeking the House to be prorogued at this point of time. If the government wanted to do so, it should have done it five months back. He said though the government had written to the Speaker to prorogue the House he could take his own time to take a decision in the matter and no one could force him to prorogue the House.

It is learnt that ministers like T G Venkatesh and others had advised Kiran to see that the House was prorogued. Talking to media, Venkatesh said they would make use of every chance to stall the process. He added amendment to Article 371- D was necessary before introducing the Telangana Bill in Parliament. Senior Congress leader Gade Venkatreddy also expressed similar opinion.

Government whip Anil said that this was a move to drag the Speaker into the T controversy. He said even if the Assembly was prorogued and the government delays to reconvene it, it would not be possible to stall the process. “The draft Bill will have to be sent back to the President within the stipulated time frame. If the Assembly fails to discuss within that time, it will be deemed to have endorsed it,” he said.

Asked what would happen if a no-confidence motion against the Government was moved, he said even in such an eventuality, the Bill would have to be disposed of first. Ramakrishnudu also endorsed this view and said that even if a no-confidence was moved against the Speaker, the Bill will take precedence and it can be disposed of with the Deputy Speaker in the chair. This issue assumed importance as former minister P Shankar Rao gave a notice for no-confidence against the government and the Chief Minister on Wednesday.