Mumbai : After the first week of winter session of the state assembly was lost in ruckus over demand for complete farm loan waiver, it would be interesting to see whether the deadlock continues or gets resolved in the second week.
The first week was washed out as the members of major opposition parties, the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) remained firm on complete waiver of farm loans. The fact that the Chief Minister avoided attending meeting of the group leaders held at the chamber of Chairman of the Upper House, indicated the lack to dialogue between both the sides.
The opposition remained firm on their demands and unlike previous session used all the parliamentary tools to successfully block the working of both the houses. The deadlock continued till the very last day of the week. At the meeting of the group leader called by Chairman of the Council House Ramraje Naik-Nimbalkar in his chamber, it became clear that the deadlock appears to have taken an ugly turn of an ego-issue of sorts. Both the sides appeared not to be willing to go a step back and initiate discussion.
Fadnavis maintained that the government would answer all the questions raised by the opposition once the house begins its business and discussions resume, while the opposition wanted that the Chief Minister should invite opposition leaders for a discussion as was the norm during Congress-NCP government. The opposition also appeared to have toughened its stand at the end of the meeting invited by the Council Chairman.
But, the developments related to the council polls on Saturday presented a very different picture. A new era of Congress-BJP cooperation appeared to have started after both the parties withdrew their respective candidates from Nagpur and Mumbai municipal corporation constituencies for the legislative councils. If this cooperation continues in the assembly, the session is expected to move smooth during the second week.
BJP MLA Atul Bhatkhalkar said he feels confident that the house would function normally for the second week. The BJP had been successful in dividing the opposition to sail through the sessions in the past. The same strategy might be seen working in the second week as the campaign for the council polls would catch speed, where both the Congress and the NCP have fielded rebel candidates even after forging an alliance ahead of the elections.
