Disruptions make Assembly sessions a futile exercise

  Cabinet meets, Assembly sessions are expected to legislate, discuss and debate. The spectacle we are now witnessing is just the opposite. The ongoing session of the Andhra Pradesh Assembly has seen continuous disruptions so far, mainly because of the TRS MLAs.

Since the start of the sessions, the House has been adjourned for not passing a resolution on Telangana.
The level of debate and discussion is hitting an all-time low and it appears that ministers can't wait to vent their anger at the opposition, which has not been a picture of ideal House behavior either.
Speaker Nadendla Manohar has the most unenviable job at the moment. The task of bringing an unruly house to order every single day is an arduous challenge.  Scams, scandals, demand for separate statehood, power crisis, name calling, blame game — he has witnessed all this and more in the last three days. It's another matter that every session is an acrimonious one.
However, this session has reached its acme or nadir depending on how one looks at it. The TRS has stonewalled all pleas for debate and has refused to climb down from its demand that a resolution be passed on the Telangana issue.
 It all began a few months ago with the party chief K Chandrasekhara Rao declaring an indefinite fast to fight for the cause of Telangana which in turn has led to one agitation or the other.
The issue has sparked off a major political storm. While there were arguments and counter-arguments by the ruling and the opposition parties to defend their stands, three precious days have been wasted in the exercise with nothing constructive coming out of it.
Assembly proceedings have been reduced to a spectacle that the entire nation is now witness to. It is about time filibustering gave way to debate and informed discussion.
-Reshmi@sakshipost