Rajasthan Legislative Assembly is likely to witness a stormy budget session with opposition BJP gearing up to corner the Ashok Gehlot government over many issues including swine flu deaths in the state. The budget session will begin on Thursday.
The opposition will finalise its strategy at a meeting chaired by the party’s state president Vasundhara Raje at its headquarters on Wednesday, apart from electing a new leader of the opposition to replace her in the Assembly.
“The maximum deaths due to swine flu in the country have been reported from the state because the government failed to take timely action to check the epidemic,” said Rajendra Rathore, BJP whip in the Assembly on Tuesday.
“This will be among other issues we will strongly raise to corner the government in the Budget session.”
The Bharatiya Janata Party will also raise the Gujjar reservation issue.
Though the cabinet has decided to grant five per cent reservation to them under the Special Backward Castes, the proposal has not been approved by the Rajasthan High court as it transcends the 50 per cent cap in reservations.
“The government betrayed Gujjars and other communities in the name of SBC reservation,” said Rathore. Deteriorating law and order situation, corruption, hike in power tariff, and price rise are some of the key issues to dominate the proceedings.
This is the last budget session of the present government as the Assembly elections are due later this year.
Privileges panel
The privileges committee of the Assembly will also table its report on the issue of a suspended woman inspector Ratna Gupta.
Gupta had allegedly misbehaved with women and child welfare committee of the Assembly during an inspection at a police station where she was station house officer in 2010.
She was repeatedly summoned by the committee to explain her conduct, but she never turned up and approached the High Court instead.
The court had also asked her to appear before the committee last year, but she defied the order.
She was suspended in October last year for her conduct and for being absent from work without information.
