GUWAHATI: The Manipur cabinet has decided to convene the Monsoon Session of the Assembly on August 29.
“The State Cabinet chaired by Hon'ble CM N Biren Singh on Monday 21/08/2023 took a decision to convene the 4th Session of the 12th Manipur Legislative Assembly (Monsoon Session) on August 29, 2023,” the chief minister’s office wrote on X, previously Twitter, on Tuesday.
This is purportedly the third time in less than a month that the cabinet has taken a decision for a session of the Assembly.
Congress leader Jairam Ramesh had on Monday said that on July 27, the state government requested Governor Anusuiya Uikey to convene a special session of the Assembly in the third week of August. Then on August 4, the governor was requested again to convene it on August 21.
“Today is August 21st and the special session has NOT been called,” Ramesh had written on X on Monday.
Official sources said the sitting of the House could not be convened on Monday as the office of the Governor did not issue any notification summoning the session. Normally, the notification is issued 15 days ahead of a session.
It now remains to be seen if the Raj Bhavan issues the notification for the August 29 session as decided by the cabinet on Monday. The last session of the House was adjourned sine die (no definite date or period to resume) in March.
Even if the session is held, out of the 10 Kuki MLAs seven from the ruling BJP are unlikely to attend it.
Recently, they had expressed their inability to attend the proposed August 21 session, which eventually was not held, citing the prevailing tense situation arising out of the ethnic violence.
The violence, which broke out on May 3, left nearly 160 people dead and over 60,000 others displaced.