BELAGAVI: The 10-day winter session in Belagavi, which began with empty benches embarrassing the Speaker, ended on Friday amid din without transacting any meaningful business raising questions about the commitment of the elected members to realise its purpose and utility.
The session, which was devoted to take up the issues related to people from the backward northern Karnataka region to allay their sense of alienation, witnessed just five hours of debate on issues related to the region. In all, the 10-day session witnessed meaningful debates and discussion for just just 41 hours, as most part of the session was rendered futile due to poor turnout of members, protests by opposition members demanding the resignation of Bengaluru Development minister K J George, Mines and Geology Minister Vinay Kulkarni and clash between opposition and treasury benches on other issues.
Though the session will go down as a historic one as it passed the Bill on regulation of private medical establishments, anti-superstition Bill and the report on irregularities in power purchase was tabled, the poor participation of members and quality of the debates has raised questions.
Not mincing words, Assembly Speaker K B Koliwad hit out at the members, especially from northern Karnataka, for failing to utilise the opportunity to highlight the plight of people of the region.
While members like Govind Karjol of BJP and others had expressed their concerns over the failed exercise, their demand for another exclusive session to discuss issues of northern Karnataka met with rebuke from Speaker Koliwad who took the members to task citing that only four members participated actively in the debate on development of northern Karnataka.