Uttar Pradesh MLAs caught sleeping during first day of Assembly session

Several Uttar Pradesh MLAs were on Monday caught sleeping during the Goods and Services Tax (GST) meeting in Lucknow's Lok Bhawan. This was the first Legislative Assembly meeting since Yogi Adityanath's government came into power.

In Adityanath's endeavour towards transparent working, the proceedings of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly were telecasted live on television for the first time. The Chief Minister had earlier said, "People should be able to see the working of their elected representatives in house. But on the other hand, what the viewers saw was a different picture where their representative chose to dose off instead of putting up fruitful discussion on the passage of GST bill.

The GST Bill which has already been cleared by the Parliament now awaits clearance from state governments for its pan-India implementation from July this year. Earlier, the Adityanath Cabinet on May 2 had approved a proposal pertaining to the implementation of GST in the state, after it is tabled and ratified in the state assembly.

Till now Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Telangana, Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Haryana have passed the GST Bill.