CM convenes NC Legislature Party meet

Jammu, Mar 17: Chief Minister Omar Abdullah Monday chaired the National Conference (NC) Legislature Party meeting before the House met for the day's proceedings with the Question Hour.

Later, a senior NC legislator, who attended the meeting, preferring anonymity, told Greater Kashmir, “Yes, the Chief Minister convened the NC Legislature Party meeting. The party has a substantial number of first-timer MLAs. They had a genuine concern that they were not getting time to speak or raise issues of people of their respective constituencies in the House due to constraints of time. They flagged this issue before the Chief Minister.”

“He (Chief Minister) listened to them patiently as the first-timers pointed out that they too were accountable to the people who voted for them to raise their issues in the House for resolution to their (people’s) satisfaction. However, due to time constraints, they said they were not able to raise questions, supplementary queries or flag constituency-specific issues during debate or otherwise,” NC MLA stated, adding that the issue was resolved by the Chief Minister in a very pragmatic manner to the satisfaction of first-time legislators.

He said Chief Minister Omar Abdullah appreciated their (first-timers’) concerns and assured them that they would get ample time to flag their issues during the House proceedings.

“You would have seen during the day’s proceedings that the new MLAs participated proactively. To some extent, they were given precedence over senior members,” a senior NC leader told Greater Kashmir.

During the day, the House also passed the Business Advisory Committee’s report recommending double sittings on three days, beginning on Monday i.e., March 17, besides on March 22 and 24.

Notably, the issue of not getting adequate time to speak has been a common concern for the members of both treasury and opposition benches, cutting across party affiliations, during the ongoing budget session.

It (issue) has even witnessed first-timer NC members expressing their anger against their senior members, even during proceedings.

Party MLA from Bijbehara, Bashir Veeri even raised a “banner of revolt” last week against the party’s Chief Whip and Deputy Chief Whip for consuming a good chunk of time themselves to raise their issues but not letting them (newcomers) speak.

“This dictatorship will not work here. We are here not at the mercy of someone. We too have been sent by people with a massive mandate. They sent us to be their voice in the House. We too have public issues to flag here,” Veeri had stated, directly taking on the party’s Chief Whip Mubarak Gul and his deputy, in the House.

Gul, while trying to counter Veeri, said that he (Veeri) too got ample time as many of his questions had figured during Question Hour and he (Veeri) had also spoken during debates.