Monsoon Session from Aug 3, Last Session Before Assembly Polls

Hyderabad: The monsoon session of the Legislative Assembly and Legislative Council will commence here on August 3. This will be the last session of the Assembly before the state goes to the polls that are scheduled to be held in December.

The BRS is planning to utilise the last session to gain maximum political mileage by undertaking debates on its welfare schemes and development programmes besides cornering Opposition on the issue of free power to agriculture.

The Budget Session of the Assembly was held from February 3 to 12. As per constitutional norms, there should not be a gap of more than six months between each session. This deadline ends on August 11 and Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao on Friday decided to convene the Monsoon Session from August 3.

Party sources said that Rao has decided to make 'free power to agriculture', a major issue, during the session. He specifically wants to target Congress on the issue of TPCC chief A. Revanth Reddy's comment that three-hour free power to agriculture was enough to cover a majority of the farmers in Telangana and that there was no need for 24-hour free power to agriculture.

Rao intended to corner the BJP on Centre pressuring states to install meters at agriculture pump sets if they need additional FRBM limit to borrow more from banks and financial institutions, sources said.

The government is also likely to re-introduce Bills on setting up common recruitment board for filling up teaching posts in all state universities; and the private universities bill, which were passed in the previous session but were rejected or kept pending by the Governor for approval.