First session of AP Assembly begins

Amaravati: The Andhra Pradesh Assembly buzzed with activity after a long gap. It was interesting to see the change of seating in the House following the change of government. The side which used to be full with yellow shirts now had more number of YSRCP members dawning their party scarfs while the seats with yellow shirts was badly shrunk.

Normally on the first day of the Assembly session, it is customary that the Chief Minister walks across to the Leader of Opposition and shakes hands with him and exchanges some pleasantries. But this time both Chief Minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy and Leader of Opposition N Chandrababu Naidu greeted each other with a namaskar from a distance.

This was followed by oath taking of the newly elected legislators. Out of the 175 MLAs, 174 had taken oath. Pro tem Speaker SVC Appala Naidu administered the oath to all the members. The Chief Minister entered the Assembly through the well decorated entrance at the muhurat that was fixed by Vedic scholars. Naidu too left his house at the time suggested by pundits.

The most significant highlight of this Assembly was that it turned to be an Assembly where only regional parties were present. The YSRCP has 151 members, the TDP 23 and Jana Sena 1. Tammineni Sitaram is slated to be elected unanimously as the Speaker of the Assembly on Thursday. Sitaram is the only candidate who had filed his nomination.

The issue of allocation of seats to the members and allotment of chambers for the Leader of Opposition and the TDP Legislature Party will be decided after Sitaram takes over as the Speaker. For the present, the chamber that was occupied by the deputy Speaker Mandali Buddha Prasad in the TDP government has been given to the Leader of Opposition N Chandrababu Naidu.

Nellore rural MLA K Sridhar Reddy created sort of flutter when he took oath in the name of Jagan Mohan Reddy. The Assembly officials told him that his oath was not valid and made him take oath for the second time when he swore in the name of god.