Bhubaneswar: Three years after keeping the issue of formation of a Legislative Council in cold store, the state government Tuesday said that the five-member panel has been constituted to study the functioning of Legislative Councils or Vidhan Parishads in other states. The panel members will visit two states and furnish a report in this regard.
Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has approved a proposal to this effect, said the Chief MInistr’s Office (CMO), adding, “The committee will visit to Andhra Pradesh and Bihar shortly to analyse the functioning of the Vidhan Parishads in those states.”
Conceiving the idea of setting up a Vidhan Parishad in Odisha, the state government had formed a five-member panel with three legislators from BJD and one each from Congress and Bhariya Janata Party (BJP) in January 2015 to study its formation and functioning in other states.
BJD lawmaker Nrusingha Charan Sahu, now serving as the Transport Minister, heads the committee, while Pramila Mallick and Manohar Randhari (from BJD), Bhujbal Majhi (Congress) and Nitesh Gangdev (BJP) are its members.
Earlier, the panel members visited Karnataka and Maharashtra and, on their return, proposed to visit two more states, but their proposal was not implemented even in three years.
Committee chairman Sahu Tuesday told the media, “Previously we had visited Maharashtra and Karnataka to examine the functioning of the legislative councils there. However, the councils in those states were set up before setting up Legislative Assembly. Before setting up an LC in Odisha it is important to study the formation and functioning of Vidhan Parishads in states where they have been set up after the formation of Legislative Assembly.”
Sources said, based on the report of the committee, the state government may table a resolution during an Assembly session for the consent of the House and, thereafter, request the Centre to move a Bill in Parliament in this regard.
It is worth mentioning here that Article 169 of the Indian Constitution deals with the abolition and formation of legislative councils in any state. The strength of a Legislative Council is limited to less than a third of the members of the state Assembly. However, their number should not be less than 40.
According to Sahu, considering the strength of the Odisha Assembly, the total number of members in the proposed state Legislative Council would be 49. A third of these 49 members would be elected by the Municipal Corporations, Municipalities and Zilla Parishads, one-third by the members of the Legislative Assembly and one-twelfth from the field of education and one-sixth from the field of literature, science, art, cooperation and social service who would be nominated by the Governor.
Meanwhile, the opposition parties in the state are of the view that the state government may expedite the formation of the Legislative Council, as the move is not only sudden, but also comes ahead of the 2019 elections. They allege that the move aims at rehabilitating some senior leaders of the ruling party, who may not contest the polls.
The BJD leaders, however, have rubbished the allegations.
Terming the formation of the committee without consulting any opposition party as ‘illegal,’ Congress and BJP had previously boycotted the panel. As a result, only the three BJD members had visited Karnataka and Maharashtra.