Is YSR Congress party president and Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy contemplating abolition of state legislative council?
The answer seems to be yes, if the speculations doing rounds in a section of media and social media are to be believed.
According to these reports, Jagan stumbled upon the idea of abolishing the legislative council after it had rejected two important bills proposed by his government – one on introduction of English medium in government schools and second one on creation of separate commissions for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.
The bills were rejected by the council which has majority number of Telugu Desam Party members.
Out of 58 members in the AP state legislative council, the TDP has 26 members and YSRC has only nine members and Bharatiya Janata Party has got three. There are five Progressive Democratic Front members, four independents and eight nominated members. The independents and nominated members are also backing the TDP.
The same situation will continue till 2021, when one-third of the sitting members would be replaced by new members in the council. Since YSRC has won 151 assembly seats, it will get more members. But Jagan does not want to wait till then, say these reports.
Apparently upset with the rejection of the two bills, the Jagan government is now contemplating abolition of the council.
He is preparing the ground for the same and the main pretext is that the council is not serving its purpose and secondly, it is causing huge financial burden on the state exchequer.
In fact, only six states have legislative councils – Telangana, AP, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Karnataka and Maharashtra.
Three years ago, the NDA government had asked these states whether they would like to abolish the councils, but for political reasons, they wanted to continue the same.
If Jagan government passes a resolution in the assembly abolishing the council, the Modi government will have no problem in accepting the same. A notification would be issued by the Centre subsequently.
Andhra Pradesh had its first legislative council in 1958 which continued till 1985, when the then N T Rama Rao government abolished the same on the ground that it was just a sixth finger.
It was only the Y S Rajasekhar Reddy government which restored the legislative council in 1987. The same situation is continuing now.
