With the Monsoon session of Parliament expected to begin on July 20, Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla is set to decide before then on two politically significant merger requests — one by 20 rebel Trinamool Congress (TMC) MPs seeking to join the Nationalist Congress Party of India (NCPI) and another by six Shiv Sena (UBT) lawmakers seeking to merge with the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena faction.
Two senior Lok Sabha officials, speaking anonymously, said Birla is examining the legal and procedural aspects of both cases and may even seek a legal opinion before making a final call. They added that Birla is likely to consult the law ministry and study past precedents before deciding on the merger applications.
“The Speaker will go through every aspect of the issue. He is likely to seek a legal opinion from the law ministry and look at precedents and rules. The process is to ensure that the decision is arrived at after detailed consideration and not taken in a hurry,” said one of the functionaries.
According to officials, for the two-day programme, a series of technical sessions have been designed to cover key aspects of legislative work, including ‘How to be an Effective Legislator; Customs, Conventions and Etiquettes for Members’; ‘Executive Accountability through Questions and other Procedural Devices in Legislatures’; ‘Committee System in Indian Parliament’; ‘Legislative Process including Private Members’ Bills’; ‘Financial Business and Budgetary Process in Parliament’; ‘Parliamentary Privileges and Ethics’; and the ‘National e-Vidhan Application (NeVA)’.
