The autumn session of the Meghalaya Legislative Assembly will be held from August 23 to 30.
There will be five working days of which three days have been allotted for government business and two days for private members’ business.
The calendar for the Assembly session was approved by the Business Advisory Committee (BAC) which met today under the chairmanship of Assembly Speaker Thomas A. Sangma.
Meanwhile, Sangma said that there is no change in the post of Leader of Opposition, which is currently being held by Congress leader Ronnie V Lyngdoh.
There have been questions about the post of Leader of Opposition after the Congress was reduced to four MLAs in the 60-member House following the resignation of Saleng A. Sangma as MLA after his election as Lok Sabha MP from Tura seat.
The Trinamool Congress with five MLAs has a bigger strength in the opposition bench while Congress and VPP have four MLAs each.
Meanwhile, the Speaker said that the ongoing construction of the new building of the Meghalaya Legislative Assembly has been affected to a great extent due to the “absence” of labourers.
“I have been trying to ensure that the progress of work is good enough and in fact I had also made a surprise visit yesterday and I am happy the progress is going okay and smoothly. However, I think because of the recent (happenings), some of the labourers were absent. We were supposed to have 200 workforce but I could see there were only around 50-60 labourers. So that is hampering the progress of the work,” Sangma said.
Asked if the ongoing checks carried out by pressure groups against undocumented migrant workers have affected this landmark project, the Speaker however said, “I don’t know, I will not say anything about it but the workforce is very less though the progress is okay. At this pace I don’t think we will be able to finish within the timeline that was given.”
He informed that 95-96 per cent of the work has been completed in regards to the left wing and right wing portion of the new building.
