Telangana: MLC polls may push Budget session to March end

Hyderabad: In a strategic move, the state government may postpone convening the budget session till third week of March instead of first week of March which is the normal practice.

According to sources, the government feels that the entire party machinery, including all top leaders would be busy in campaigning for the official candidates in the biennial election to the two MLC seats Hyderabad – Rangareddy- Mahbubnagar and Nalgonda- Khammam- Warangal Graduates' constituencies till March 17.

The main reason for such a thinking in the government circles, sources say is that it does not want to give any opportunity to the opposition to use the legislature as a platform for political speeches and make statements alleging that the government had failed to fulfil its promise of giving jobs to the unemployed and non-implementation of unemployment dole. It may be mentioned that the voters in both the constituencies are graduates and there are considerable number of unemployed people.

Earlier, the government had planned to kick-start the budget session from March first week and the CM also held first round of budget preparatory meeting with top officials of the government recently, While the budget preparations at official level would continue, discussions with ministers would be postponed as they would be busy in campaign.

It does not want the opposition to know budget related data mainly the expenditure incurred so far for each scheme and the requirement of funds in the next budget outlay for 2021-2022 financial year.

TRS chief K Chandrasekhar Rao set targets for every minister in their respective districts and for MLAs in their own constituencies.

All of them have been told to stay put in their assembly constituencies till the elections were over. In the backdrop of this situation, if the session was held, the opposition may try to gain advantage and launch a vitriolic attack on the government. Hence, the government feels that it would be better not to hold the session till the polls were over.