Hyderabad: The controversy surrounding the prorogation of the AP Assembly took an interesting turn on Thursday, with Deputy Chief Minister Damodar Raja Narasimha writing to Governor E.S.L. Narasimhan not to prorogue the house even if the Chief Minister recommends it, and the main Opposition leader, N. Chandrababu Naidu coming out strongly in defence of Chief Minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy and finding fault with Speaker Nadendla Manohar for making an issue out of a routine matter.
However, there is no official word yet from the Speaker’s office on his signing the prorogation file sent to him by the Chief Minister.
The Deputy Chief Minister wrote to the Governor on Thursday, mentioning that it is not desirable at this stage to prorogue the house when the President is expected to refer the much anticipated Telangana Bill to the Assembly.
He said under Art 174(1) it is the responsibility of the Governor to summon the House, since the House was not prorogued yet, rather than proroguing it and then summoning it again.
Naidu said that whenever the Chief Minister’s office sends a message asking the Speaker to recommend prorogation, it was done without any issue as government may feel it necessary to bring in some ordinances to meet exigencies.
“Why is Manohar taking it as a prestige issue? By raking up a controversy on a simple issue he is acting like a Congressman and not like a Speaker. We have been finding fault with his partisan attitude from the beginning,”?Naidu said.
In a related issue, minister for minor irrigation T.G. Venkatesh told the media that he has advised the Chief Minister to dissolve the Assembly to stall the T-process.
