BHUBANESWAR: Odisha government's willingness to set up Vidhan Parishad, the upper house of the State Assembly, has come under scanner as a formal proposal is yet to be submitted to the Centre by the State.
In the peak of the controversy over the issue nearly five months back, Speaker Surya Narayan Patro had told mediapersons that a letter was received from the Centre after the resolution submitted by the Assembly to the Parliament.
He also said that the letter contained details about the procedure for formation of legislative council in Odisha. The Centre had suggested that there should be interaction with the Parliamentary Affairs department.
Sources in the Parliamentary Affairs department, however, said that a full-fledged proposal has not been formulated yet. Instead, the department again sent the resolution passed in the State Assembly to the Parliament and Union Law Ministry.
The State Assembly had passed a resolution for the formation of legislative council in Odisha on September 6, 2018. A three-member committee of the Assembly had visited different states having legislative councils and submitted a report to the government before the resolution was passed in the Assembly.
Parliamentary Affairs Minister Bikram Keshari Arukha moved the resolution in the house which was passed by 104 BJD members as Congress and BJP members stayed away. Union Law Minister Kiren Rijiju while replying to a question from BJD member Prasanna Acharya in the Rajya Sabha on February 10, 2022 said that the Centre had not received any proposal in this regard from the State government.
Soon after the reply of the Union Law Minister, Speaker Patro had announced that two letters have again been sent to the Centre over the matter. In the first letter sent by the Assembly secretariat, all documents relating to the resolution passed in the Odisha Assembly were provided. The second letter was written by the Speaker to the Union Law Minister in this regard.
Parliamentary Affairs Minister Arukha was not available for his comment while secretary G Mathi Vathanan is away on a visit outside the State. However, Acharya told this paper that formation of legislative council is completely under the purview of the Centre as an Act will have to be passed in this regard. He, however, said that there is no development in this regard.