Bill introduced to raise number of AP Legislative Council members

Amid protests by opposition members, a bill was introduced in the Lok Sabha on Monday to increase the number of members of the Andhra Pradesh Legislative Council from 50 to 58.

With the Andhra Pradesh Reorganization (Amendment) Bill, 2015 set to be introduced by Minister of State for Home H P Chaudhury, Vinod Kumar (TRS) said the Centre gave an assurance of consulting Telangana and Andhra Pradesh before passing any legislation to amend the Andhra Pradesh Reorganization Act.

The introduction of the bill was opposed by Saugata Roy (Trinamool) who said that the legislation won’t help in settling issues that have been unresolved ever since Telangana was carved out of Andhra Pradesh. Even Home Minister Rajnath Singh established that several issues needed to be resolved and the bill was not comprehensive in nature.

Even with some opposition, the bill was introduced based on the majority of agreement. As per the constitution, the Bill states that the Legislative Council’s total number of members would not exceed one-third of the legislative assembly members’ total number and should not be less than 40.

Andhra Pradesh after the bifurcation was left with 175 members in legislative assembly and 50 in legislative council. As one-third of 175 results in 58, the strength of the state’s upper house was decided to be increased.