Extend K'taka Assembly session by a week: DKShi

Bengaluru: After Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa on Monday hinted that the state was contemplating reducing the legislative session from eight to three days owing to the Covid-19 pandemic, Karnataka Congress President DK Shivakumar on Monday said that the ongoing Assembly session in the state needs to be extended by a week.

The eight-day monsoon session of the Karnataka Legislative Assembly got underway on Monday, September 21.

Addressing presspersons Shivakumar said, “We want to the Assembly session extended by a week because about 30 bills have been tabled in the state assembly this time. In them, there are a lot of Ordinances that are against the sentiments of the state.”

“This time 1,600 questions have been put before the Karnataka Assembly by Congress members. They are supposed to answer them. There are a lot of issues to be discussed, among them are issues of corruption, failure in handling COVID-19, GST and rain causing havoc,” he added.

Meanwhile, Siddaramaiah quipped that the Opposition will agree to a reduction of days only if the ruling party, BJP withdraws all its 32 bills.

“Let them withdraw all bills, then we can think about it,” he retorted and asserted that if the ruling party decides to bring all bills then the opposition would demand for extension of the session by another two weeks. “I agree there is a spike in Corona cases and some of our MLAs are not able to attend. All that is fine, but that cannot be the only thing to reduce the number of days,” he stressed.