Before the start of the Budget session of Parliament, Trinamul Congress chairperson Mamata Banerjee today held a virtual meeting with both her Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha MPs.
The meeting took place around 4 pm and she conducted the meeting from her Kalighat office. It is learnt that she asked her MPs to take up the issues like rejection of the state’s tableau for the Republic Day function in New Delhi featuring Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose on his 125 birth anniversary in Parliament.
She asked her party MPs to protest against the decision to hold the Budget session just before Assembly elections in five states. The five states going to.poll are UP, Punjab,Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur.
It is learnt that Trinamul Congress chairperson Mamata Banerjee will also ask her MPs to be vocal in both houses of Parliament regarding the Centre’s total disregard for the federal structure as provided in the Constitution. Miss Banerjee has expressed strong reservations against the Union government’s proposed amendment to the IAS (Cadre) Rules, 1954, which would allow the Central government to post IAS officers belonging to a particular state cadre on Central deputation, disregarding the concerned state’s reservations.
All attempts to make All India Services an instrument of the Union Government is shameful, she said. “It is a direct attack on our federal structure,” she said and asked her MPs to protest vehemently on the issue. The purpose of the rule change is to post IAS officers on Central deputation, effectively hampering the state government’s autonomy.
With the proposed changes, the All India Services would also become an instrument of the Union government. She has already written two letters to the Prime Minister requesting him not to implement the planned move.