As expected, the YSR Congress party government in Andhra Pradesh has decided against conducting the budget session of the state assembly to pass the regular annual budget and get the appropriation bill passed for the expenditure to be incurred for the next financial year 2021-22.
Instead, the Jagan government has decided to follow the ordinance route to adopt the vote-on-account budget for the next three months.
Jagan convened the cabinet meeting through online and got the approval for the ordinance to draw vote-on-account budget for the three months. It is learnt the government has proposed an expenditure of Rs 90,000 crore for this period.
The ordinance would now be sent to the Governor Biswa Bhushan Harichandan for approval, which is just a formality. So, there would be no issue for spending of funds from April 1.
Last year, too, Jagan government did not convene the budget session of the state assembly as it was planning to hold the same in the last week after the completion of elections to urban and rural local bodies.
But with the state election commission deferring the elections in the wake of the outbreak of Coronavirus pandemic and the Centre imposing lockdown, the Jagan government had to promulgate the ordinance for the vote-on-account for three months.
In the second week of June, it held a short two-day budget session to adopt the budget. However, the appropriation bill, which was passed by the assembly, was withheld in the legislative council. Two weeks later, the bill was deemed to have been passed and the Governor gave his assent to the same.
This time, too, the reason cited by the government for not convening the budget session is the by-election to Tirupati parliamentary seat and pending elections to ZPTC and MPTCs.
However, there is a talk in the political circles that Jagan, perhaps, doesn’t want to see Naidu’s face in the assembly again and also get the appropriation bills stalled in the legislative council.
“It appears he has developed so much hatred towards the TDP chief that he doesn’t want to see Naidu’s face in the assembly. He is hell bent on sending Naidu to jail before the beginning of the assembly session,” a political observer said.
Sources said there is a possibility that Jagan might convene the assembly in May ending or June first week, so as to get the budget passed quickly without any discussion.
